The University of Alabama’s (UA) non-discrimination policy was not well known in the spring of 2007. That was about to change.
Of the 12 major universities that make up the Southeastern Conference, UA at the time was one of only two that had yet to protect sexual orientation under its non-discrimination policy. The Faculty Senate had passed a resolution asking for its inclusion five years earlier, but it fell on the deaf ears of a new university president who was not looking for more controversy.
The issue was dead, forgotten in the midst of many other changes being put in place on our expanding campus.
But in December of 2006, wheels were turning. I was writing a story on transgender living and found a now former UA instructor who had gender reassignment and was willing to go on the record with his story. Later, he backed out because he and other LGBT people on staff were worried they would not be protected by UA policies if their stories appeared in the media.
It was the first time I had heard of this and I brought the issue back to the newspaper. Three months later The Crimson White began a series of reports to bring the policy back to the forefront. Over the next year, we interviewed students, faculty and campus organizations that support LGBT rights. LGBT students shared their experiences of discrimination on campus, and how a simple addition to the non-discrimination policy would make them feel more protected.
We ran staff editorials arguing for the change, student groups led demonstrations, petitions were started, the Senate voted for change, and UA administrators were asked about it whenever they spoke publicly. The administration was quiet at first and then brief with its answers. The official response was that sexual orientation already was protected under federal laws.
The question they did not have an answer for, however, was that if every group was already protected without the policy, why would they have one?
Then in August of 2007, the other SEC school that did not specifically protect sexual orientation, the University of Tennessee (UT), changed its policy to include sexual orientation.
"The reason that I thought it was important is because it's the standard practice and the best practice across the country," UT Provost Robert C. Holub – who ordered the change – told The Crimson White in October. "Very few universities don't have [sexual orientation] in their anti-discrimination statements.”
Then, after nearly a year of work by the paper and after action taken by those who read and cared, university officials quietly added “sexual orientation” to the policy’s Web page over the holiday break in December. There was no press release and no letter announcing the reason for the change. Its addition could not have looked any more resentful.
But at least the LGBT community at UA finally had something it felt like it could fall back on; our university officially recognized their rights, and I was and still am proud to be a part of the newspaper that helped make it happen.
