NASHVILLE, Tenn. (ABP) — Belmont University trustees voted Jan. 26 to add sexual orientation to the historically Baptist school’s anti-discrimination policy.
In December Belmont parted ways with a successful women’s soccer coach after she told her team that she and her same-sex partner were expecting a baby. The move gained national attention in sporting news and prompted discussions among campus groups about whether the private, Christian university discriminates against gays.
President Bob Fisher said the addition of sexual orientation to the school’s policy against discrimination simply puts into writing what was already being practiced. During his 11 years as president, Fisher said sexual orientation “has not been considered in student admissions nor in hiring, promotion, salary or dismissal decisions.”
Fisher said the trustees also added a preamble to the policy stating that “Belmont is a Christian community, and the university’s faculty, administration and staff uphold Jesus as the Christ and as the measure of all things.”
The policy, which also covers non-discrimination on the basis of race, sex, color, national or ethnic origin, age, disability or military service, still retains, under federal law, the university’s right to “discriminate on the basis of religion in order to fulfill its purposes.”
For more than 50 years Belmont was affiliated with the Tennessee Baptist Convention. Those ties ended in 2007, with settlement of a lawsuit over whether trustees had the right to elect their own successors instead of those selected by the convention.
Randy Davis, executive director of the state convention, told Baptist Press that Belmont had walked away from its “Christian heritage and roots.”
Lisa Howe, the former soccer coach who reportedly stepped down in mutual agreement with the administration, told local media she is pleased with the new anti-discrimination policy, but she is pursuing several job leads and doesn’t plan to reapply at Belmont.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.