U of M to finally protect transgender students

After years of stalling, the University of Michigan is poised to adopt a policy protecting its students, faculty and staff from discrimination based on gender identity and expression.

Continued -Adding the phrase “gender identity and expression” to the nondiscrimination clause in the university’s bylaws is a move that campus LGBT activists have been pushing for half a decade. The language is designed to protect transgender people as well as those who simply don’t conform to gender norms.

As more colleges and universities approved the change in recent years – the latest count is 147 nationwide, including all eight Ivy League schools and U-M rivals Ohio State and Michigan State – the pressure has been mounting on U-M’s Board of Regents to follow suit.

The board is expected to do so Thursday at its monthly meeting. Several people involved with the effort said Sunday evening that a vote on the change will be on the meeting agenda when it is released at noon Monday.

Officially, that doesn’t guarantee the measure will go through. But there is little doubt that it will. The eight-member board rarely, if ever, votes on a policy change – especially one dealing with a sensitive issue like discrimination – unless it’s clear that it will pass.

U-M officials previously have argued that the word “sex” in the nondiscrimination policy encompasses gender identity and expression. That rationale is based on a 2004 ruling by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But LGBT activists have countered that (a) the court ruling is flimsy – gender is generally considered a social concept, while sex is a biological one – and potentially vulnerable; (b) explicitly including gender identity and expression would send a powerful signal that the university supports transgender and nonconforming people; and (c) failing to make the change when so many other top schools have done so has started to affect the university’s reputation as a leader on LGBT issues.

To be sure, U-M is widely considered an LGBT-friendly school. It was the first in the country to establish a resource center for gay and lesbian students, and it was named one of the top 20 schools for LGBT students in the Advocate magazine’s college guide, released in 2006. But the gender identity issue has become a sore spot: Last month, GenderPAC released a report that highlighted U-M as one of the eight top-25 schools that hasn’t yet adopted the policy.

“I think it was finally getting through to them how far behind we were on this,” said recent U-M graduate Jaya Kalra, a former Stonewall Democrats chair who worked on the issue during her time on campus.

The move has wide support among faculty and administrators. Protecting gender identity was the primary recommendation of a task force on the campus climate for transgender students, which was convened in 2003 by then-Provost Paul Courant. Students and faculty had been working on the issue since 2002, but the task force’s April 2004 report energized activists, who soon began speaking at Board of Regents meetings every month about the issue. In April 2006, the Faculty Senate overwhelmingly adopted a resolution urging the regents to approve the change.

So why has it taken so long? Proponents of the measure have long grumbled that some of the regents – who are elected in a statewide vote – didn’t want to touch an issue that still makes some of the general public squeamish. Some attribute the move to last November’s election, when Democrat Julia Darlow unseated Republican David Brandon – who is seen as having ambitions for higher office – and gave Democrats on the board a 6-2 majority.

“The election in `06 gave the Democrats the advantage, so I think they felt safer at that point,” Kalra said.