Vanderbilt is moving forward in making the campus more welcoming for all students regardless of their gender identity or expression in response to efforts made by students and a report issued by a GLBTQI Student Issues Committee.
There will be “five immediate key action steps,” Dean of Students Mark Bandas wrote in a press release: opening an Office for GLBT Life; hiring a director of GLBT life; working with various campus groups, especially admissions offices and The Commons, to “ensure that members of the GLBT community understand that they are welcomed and valued members of our community”; moving to amend the non-discrimination policy to include gender identity and expression; and continuing to investigate additional recommendations made by the GLBTQI Student Issues Committee.
“Inclusion is the foundation of an academic community,” Bandas said. “We can best reap the benefits of the challenges of difference in an environment based upon mutual respect and appreciation.”
The changes will make Vanderbilt the first school in Tennessee and the Southeastern Conference to add “gender identity or expression” in its non-discrimination policy.
“We’ve been reluctant,” said senior Nick Wells, president and founder of Human Rights Campaign at Vanderbilt. “Now we can really be a leader in Tennessee and the SEC.”
Much of the university’s action is being taken as a result of an alleged hate crime in early September when an undergraduate student and a recent graduate of the Divinity School, both male, were subjected to racial slurs in the Carmichael Towers West Quiznos and were attacked outside.
Wells has been active since that incident to push administrators to create change. Most notable of HRC Vanderbilt’s efforts this year has been creating a petition to amend the non-discrimination policy, which has garnered over 1,500 votes, and winning the support of prominent student groups, including Vanderbilt Student Government and the Greek community, where 33 of the 36 chapters voted to support the amendment.
“I think it’s important to understand the role student activism had in helping encourage the administration to move forward on this,” Wells said.
Wells seemed to be pleased with the action the university is taking.
“The recommendations the committee made and that the university is moving forward is a very good first step,” Wells said, although he said there were still more changes, such as the creation of gender-neutral housing and bathrooms, that could be made.
VSG President Joseph Williams also said he thinks these initiatives show “excellent progress” on the part of Vanderbilt.
“The university’s done what it needs to do,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, everyone deserves to feel comfortable, safe and welcome. Policy change now and in the future will do that.”
Chancellor Nick Zeppos expressed his support similarly, saying in the report that “we cannot be satisfied with our progress until every member of our community feels safe, secure and valued at Vanderbilt.”
—Sara Gast can be reached at
