Campus Pride, an advocacy organization for LGBT students at colleges and universities, identified 102 campuses said to openly discriminate in the group’s 2016 “Shame List” released Aug. 29.
Last year’s inaugural Shame List identified 57 campuses that had applied for or received a religious exemption to non-discrimination requirements of Title IX. The new list highlights “The Absolute Worst Campuses for LGBTQ Youth” in terms of policies, programs and practices.
Shane Windmeyer
“Most people are shocked when they learn that there are college campuses still today that openly discriminate against LGBTQ youth,” Shane Windmeyer, founder and executive director of Campus Pride, said in a news release. “It is an unspoken secret in higher education, how they use religion as a tool for cowardice and discrimination. This list uncovers the religion-based bigotry that is harmful and perpetuated against LGBTQ youth on these campuses.”
Nearly a third of schools on the list — 31 of the 102 — cooperate either with the Southern Baptist Convention or a Baptist state convention that partners with the national body. Most are included for applying for exemption to Title IX, a federal program that prohibits discrimination in programs funded by taxpayers, while some, like California Baptist College in Riverside, Calif., made the list for giving money to dismantle SB 1146, a California bill designed to protect LGBTQ students from discrimination at Christian schools.
Roger S. (Sing) Oldham, vice president for convention communications and relations for the SBC Executive Committee, said in Baptist Press it isn’t surprising to see so many Southern Baptist schools in the list, given the denomination’s official doctrinal stance stated in the Baptist Faith and Message defining marriage as “one man and one woman in covenant commitment for a lifetime” and “the channel of sexual expression according to biblical standards.”
SBC President Steve Gaines told Baptist Press that Bible-believing institutions of higher learning “should have the right to peacefully and lovingly adhere to the tenets of our faith without being castigated by those of opposing views.”
“We deserve the same tolerance that the LGBT community deserves,” said Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn. “We should not be victims of hate speech by being caricatured with pejorative, false accusations such as being guilty of ‘shameful acts of religion-based prejudice and bigotry’ simply because we believe and seek to obey Scripture.”
Founded in 2001, Campus Pride has been benchmarking LGBTQ-friendly campuses with its Campus Pride Index since 2007.
Windmeyer said campuses that openly discriminate “are dangerous for vulnerable LGBTQ youth and others.”
“All families and youth deserve to know this information,” Windmeyer said. “And so do corporations who do business with these campuses — from those who hire and recruit, vendors who contract food service, sell books, make donations and in any other way provides goods or services to a college or university.”