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68 page nondiscrimination petition with 1045 signatures signed
by UNCG faculty, staff, and students |
In a 1992 The Chronicle
of Higher Education article about campus climate for faculty, John D’Emilio, a UNCG faculty in the Department of History at the time, stated “I think it safe
to say I’m the person on campus who is most openly gay. On a very personal
level, it’s fine… But although there is not an overtly hostile climate, there’s
not much of a welcoming climate either. Because, if there was, there would be
more openly gay faculty members and the University would have certain policies
it doesn’t have. There might be courses that don’t exist now. It would be nice
to have a faculty and staff group. I don’t think nondiscrimination or benefits
policies will be under discussion until a group forms.”
It was not until four years later, in 1996, that the UNCG
Faculty Senate would debate the inclusion of a nondiscrimination policy for the
campus. Contrary to D’Emilio’s prediction, it was not an LGBTQ+ faculty group
that would bring the issue before the faculty and the chancellor (Patricia Sullivan),
but three students concerned with the state of equity on the campus. After the
unanimous passing of a nondiscrimination clause by the UNCG Student Senate,
three lesbian students, Alesha Daughtrey, Jessica Stine, and Mandy Vetter,
approached the Faculty Senate in spring of 1996 to approve a similar
nondiscrimination statement. Of the sixteen UNCG campuses, ten already had
adopted policies of nondiscrimination against school employees and students by
1996.
As UNCG was known to be an LGBTQ+-friendly university, it was thought that the
resolution would pass through the Faculty Senate with approval quickly,
however, the subject proved to be to be too complex and too volatile to be
accepted without conflict.
According to the News
and Record, some faculty expressed homophobic apprehensions about what
would happen to the University if a policy protected someone based on sexual
orientation,
“At least one professor who voted against the measure feared
the term ‘sexual orientation’ could be interpreted to include people with
deviant sexual habits, such as pedophiles. Another professor said it could
force the university to set up a quota system for hiring gays and lesbians” and
that the policy was “unjustifiable, unworkable, [and] illegal.”
UNCG Faculty Senate Chair, Charles Tisdale, who was reported
as one of the few faculty members voting in support of a nondiscrimination
policy, responded to such remarks, saying, “Nobody wants to face the moral
issue, so they use the legal issue as a smoke screen.”
Certainly, the potential legal ramifications of adopting a
nondiscrimination policy based on sexual orientation, as described by the University
Counsel of the time Lucien Capone III, were substantial. In a letter to Charles
Tisdale, Capone states, “I want to reiterate at the outset that I personally
support the notion that we ought not discriminate against anyone simply because
of his or her sexual orientation. Rather, my concern is for the unintended
consequences that may result if we attempt to formalize the philosophy into
legally enforceable policies.”
There were two legal arguments brought to attention. One of the consequences
Capone foresaw was that if the university created a policy protecting a
classification of people not recognized by federal or state statutes, other
groups with non-protected status could demand special treatment by UNCG.
At the Faculty Senate hearing for a nondiscrimination policy, Capone mentioned
that the elevation of a non-protected group, such as one based on sexual
orientation, might lead to such groups as “the KKK, skinheads, Nazis” or even
smokers petitioning for special protection on campus.
Additionally, Capone argued that setting a policy protecting
people based on sexual orientation may result in the University having to offer
domestic partnership benefits. As gay and lesbian marriage was illegal at the time, University Counsel feared having a sexual orientation nondiscrimination policy
would force UNCG to offer spousal benefits to “domestic partnerships [which]
have no legal status leaving the University in a nether world of practically
unanswerable questions.”
When asked about Capone’s legal concerns relating to the implementation
of a nondiscrimination policy, UNC System legal counsel, Richard Robinson, felt
the arguments were alarmist. In relation to the potential for a gay and lesbian hiring
quota, UNC Counsel argued that a nondiscrimination policy is not the same as an
affirmative action policy, posing no threat to interfering with faculty recruitment.
Robinson maintained that although any given group may ask for special treatment
from a faculty senate or chancellor, no college or university could be forced
to accept a policy for a non-state or federally protected group. Finally, on
the subject of partnership benefits, “That kind of benefit-sharing is based on
marital status, and as long as state law limits that kind to spouses then that
really takes it off the screen.”
After two failed votes by the UNCG Faculty Senate, James
V. Carmichael Jr., Professor in the Library and Information Studies Department
and member of the Equal Opportunity – Intergroup Relations Committee, presented
the revised proposal for a non-legally binding anti-discrimination statement to
UNCG Faculty Senate on November 2, 1996. Carmichael provided remarks in the
stead of Novem Mason, Chair of the Committee, as Mason and Carmichael agreed
that it was appropriate, “since I [Carmichael] am a gay faculty member… who
called this perhaps the most significant even in the history of the university
over the past 20 years.”
Carmichael, one of the few “out” faculty at UNCG at the time noted in his
remarks,
“While I am tenured, I know many faculty members who still
feel threatened… For these individuals, silence and assimilation represent the
better part of wisdom, and perhaps they are right… But stoicism has its perils,
too… I urge the Senate to pass this proposed statement not only for the
self-interest of a largely invisible minority, but so that this university may
go on record as a leader in sensitivity to human rights. Given our history as a
women’s institution, we should foster tolerance with adamant conviction.”
Supporting Carmichael’s remarks, Joy Brown, an undergraduate
student in the Department of Social Work, provided remarks and presented a sixty-eight page petition with 1045 signatures of UNCG faculty, staff, and students who
supported the resolution. Brown was moved to begin this petition process after
reading a News and Record article
about the debacle, being, “shocked and embarrassed that the university that I
take so much pride in would turn its back on guaranteeing the rights of some of
its students.”
After two previous attempts, a statement
of nondiscrimination was voted in favor of unanimously by the Faculty Senate. It was approved by Chancellor Sullivan by the end of November 1996. Regarding this
non-binding statement, Seth Tezyk, head of UNCG’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual
Student Association remarked, “I think it was a relief to pass it and say, ‘OK,
let’s get our foot in the door.”
The nondiscrimination statement stands today, unchanged from its 1996 introduction,
though state and federal conditions have changed for the LGBTQ+ communities.
The North Carolina state health plan with Blue Cross Blue Shield began offering
coverage for same-sex couples and all domestic partners as of 2014, and on June
26, 2015 the US Supreme Court ruled gay marriage was constitutionally
protected, affording the potential for additional spousal benefits to the UNCG
community. With the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling, LGBTQ+ Civil Rights Movement has made definitive progress, far beyond the putting “our foot
in the door” of 1996.
