House Dems Question Baylor’s Title IX Exemption

Inside Higher Ed | Kathering Knott | Sept. 7, 2023

A group of House Democrats is calling on the Biden administration to clarify the scope of Baylor University’s religious exemptions under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.

Religious colleges and universities can seek an exemption from Title IX rules, which bar gender-based discrimination in federally funded education, if the requirements aren’t consistent with the religious tenets of the organization that controls the institution. Baylor asserted its exemption in May after the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights began investigating complaints that the university tolerated sexual harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity. 

The Education Department affirmed that Baylor is exempt from Title IX provisions relating to the harassment of LGBTQ+ students in a letter that became public last month—a move that one advocacy group said was a first for the department and could endanger queer students at the university.

“Without additional clarification, the Department’s letter may suggest Baylor University qualifies for sweeping exemptions from various Title IX provisions, including protections against sexual harassment and other sex-based harassment,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter sent this week to the Education Department.

California representatives Adam Schiff and Mark Takano signed the letter along with Texas representatives Joaquin Castro, Veronica Escobar and Greg Casar.

“This notable exemption to Title IX’s sexual harassment rules claimed by Baylor University raises significant concerns over the federal civil rights protections from discrimination against LGBTQI+ students—the very protections being safeguarded by the Biden-Harris Administration—and may have broad consequences that weaken Title IX protections for all students in schools across the nation,” they wrote. 

Baylor has said that department’s decision to affirm its exemption from sexual harassment claims won’t mean any changes to the institution’s current practices and policies.

The Office for Civil Rights is still investigating the complaints against the university.

Five U.S. Congressmen ask DOE to clarify Baylor’s ‘religious’ exemption

Baptist News Global | Mark Wingfield | Sept. 6, 2023

U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and four other members of Congress wrote to the U.S. Department of Education Sept. 5 seeking clarification on the recent waiver granted Baylor University allowing discrimination against LGBTQ students on campus.

The renewed exemption granted Baylor “is not only unprecedented but is a blatant attempt to interfere and pressure the department to stop an ongoing sex-based harassment investigation,” the legislators charged. “That is unacceptable.”

Joining Schiff in the letter were Reps. Mark Takano, D-Calif.; Joaquin Castro, D-Texas; Veronica Escobar, D-Texas; and Greg Casar, D-Texas.

The letter was sent four days after Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — who has no connection to Baylor — held a news conference in Waco with Baylor President Linda Livingstone and three days after Cruz posted a selfie in a skybox at Baylor’s Saturday football game against Texas State University.

Cruz’s prominent appearance on campus raised eyebrows among some Baylor students, faculty and alumni because he is being challenged in his bid for reelection by a Baylor alumnus who is a former captain of the football team. Cruz also is stridently anti-LGBTQ inclusion.

U.S. Rep. Collin Allred, D-Texas, trolled Cruz’s social media post with his own brief video posted from outside McLane Stadium on game day. “Once a Bear, always a Bear,” he wrote. “Traveling across the state today and I had to stop at Baylor University to wish Baylor Football good luck ahead of the first game of the season.”

From its founding, Baylor and its alumni have played key roles in state and federal government. The university has produced five Texas governors and countless legislators of all political persuasions, ranging from Democrat Ann Richards to Libertarian Rand Paul.

Ironically, on the day of the legislators’ letter, another high-profile Baylor alumnus, Ken Paxton, sat before his peers in the Texas Senate facing an impeachment trial.

While Baylor’s internal struggle over how far to go in LGBTQ inclusion is not strictly a partisan divide, this week’s events illustrate how important Baylor’s identity is in a state shaped both by religious conservatism and explosive politics.

Baylor is by far the largest private university in the state and boasts a loyal alumni base who are likely to be consistent voters. Allred’s standing as a former Baylor football star is one of his selling points, just as Cruz’s record of blocking LGBTQ advances is a selling point to religious conservatives who want Baylor to hold the line against inclusion.

What’s different now is that Baylor’s recent request for a Title IX exemption from the Department of Education — to keep receiving federal funds via scholarships and grants — is based on a claim that the university’s board of regents is, effectively, a church.

“Recent reports suggest that Baylor University should not be allowed to claim religious exemptions because it is no longer controlled by a religious organization,” the letter states. “We thus also urge the department to investigate these claims to determine whether Baylor University should be allowed to avail itself of religious-based exemptions from Title IX.”

That concern has to do with the fact that Baylor no longer is governed by the Baptist General Convention of Texas but is led by a self-perpetuating board of regents.

The university’s most recent exemption request says, “Baylor is ‘controlled by’ a predominantly Baptist board of regents, which operates within the Christian-oriented aims and ideals of Baptists.”

Critics of the exemption claim the board of regents is not the same as a “religious organization” required by the Department of Education to grant religious exemptions. The Congressmen agree with that critique.

What’s also different is that the Department of Education has a pending sexual harassment claim against Baylor from two years ago that has not been adjudicated. The legislators’ letter urges the department to investigate and resolve that claim before granting Baylor any more exemptions.

“Given the very public and troubling history of sexual assault at Baylor University, rather than seek an exemption from protecting against sex-based harassment, including sexual harassment, within the institution, Baylor University should instead be focused on improving and strengthening its response to harassment,” the letter states. “Baylor University actively seeking to invoke this exemption sends an alarming message that it wants harassment to go unchecked.”

One of the primary concerns cited in the letter is a need to understand clearly the scope of the exemptions granted to Baylor.

“When Congress enacted Title IX in 1972, it created a liberal and expansive process for religiously controlled education institutions to notify the government when specific tenets of religious faith require exemption from discrete parts of Title IX,” the letter explains. “Congress never intended this process to allow for campuses where sex-based harassment and discrimination are broadly sanctioned or encouraged. Baylor University should take this opportunity to redirect its resources to ensuring the safety of its students, rather than abusing the Title IX exemption process that has been administered successfully for half a century.”

The Congressional letter was sent to Secretary of Education Miguel A. Cardona and Office for Civil Rights Assistant Secretary Catherine Lhamon. It was endorsed by the American Atheists, End Rape on Campus, Equality California, Family Equality, Human Rights Campaign, Interfaith Alliance, It’s on Us, Keshet, Know Your IX, National Council of Jewish Women, National Women’s Law Center, SIECUS, and Students Engaged in Advancing Texas.

Baylor religious exemption to Title IX sexual harassment rules draws criticism

The school is now exempt from investigating sexual harassment allegations when doing so conflicts with its religious tenets.

Dallas Morning News | Joy Ashford | Sept. 8, 2023

Baylor University, one of the largest Christian universities in the nation, has been at the center of controversy after the Department of Education expanded the school’s religious exemption to Title IX in a letter made public last month. The school is now exempt from investigating sexual harassment allegations when doing so conflicts with its religious tenets.

Baylor requested the expanded exemption in May, a month after the U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation into the school’s alleged failure to respond to claims of sexual harassment against a former LGBTQ student.

Baylor affiliates and Baptist leaders have voiced disapproval of Baylor, saying the exemption leaves LGBTQ students little recourse when faced with sexual harassment. Over a thousand Baylor affiliates and Baptist ministers signed a letter urging the school to “affirm an individual’s right to participate in a campus climate that is free from harassment in all forms.”

Signees include the former chair of the school’s religion department, more than 10 current faculty members in that department, senior members of the administration and former Title IX coordinator Patty Crawford, who resigned following a sex abuse scandal at Baylor in 2016.

On Tuesday, five members of Congress sent a letter to the Department of Education expressing concern over the department’s decision. Baylor’s request, they wrote, “is not only unprecedented but is a blatant attempt to interfere and pressure the Department to stop an ongoing sex-based harassment investigation. That is unacceptable.”

Among the signees were three Democratic congressmen from Texas: Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, Rep. Veronica Escobar of El Paso and Rep. Greg Casar of Austin. The letter was endorsed by organizations including National Women’s Law Center, Human Rights Campaign and Interfaith Alliance.

Baylor had previously requested religious exemptions from Title IX only once before, in 1976, Baptist News Global reported. That year, the school asked to be exempt from laws that would have required it to grant medical leave to unmarried pregnant women and give female and male ministerial students equal access to scholarships and educational programs. If Baylor did not receive the exemption to Title IX’s sexual harassment regulations, it would have been required to respond promptly to all formal sexual harassment complaints, including those from LGBTQ students.

In a schoolwide email, Baylor President Linda Livingstone described the school’s request as an assertion of its existing religious exemptions. She said Baylor’s policies regarding sexual harassment will not change and the school’s Title IX office will continue to investigate allegations and complaints.

Why did Baylor ask the Department of Education for a religious exemption to sexual harassment regulations?

In 2021, Baylor student Veronica Bonifacio Penales filed a Title IX complaint against the school with the Department of Education, alleging Baylor failed to investigate anti-LGBTQ harassment against her.

According to Penales, the harassment began soon after she came to Baylor in 2019. That year, when she posted an Instagram photo showing a pride flag drawn on her leg, it was “spammed” with hashtags such as #NotMyGoodBaptistUniversity and #NotMyGoodChristianUniversity, she said. One person commented “#f--runner” because Penales had been chosen as a freshman flag runner for a Baylor football game. Later in college, she said, numerous sticky notes were posted on her dorm room door with the word “f--.”

Penales, who graduated this year, said when she reported harassment to the Title IX office, she never heard back or saw any action taken.

The Department of Education opened an investigation into her complaint on April 7. On May 1, Baylor wrote to the Department of Education requesting Penales’ suit be dismissed and the school’s religious exemptions to Title IX be applied to sexual harassment regulations.

The department granted the school’s request for an expanded exemption in a letter made public in August. Baylor is the first school to request or receive a religious exemption to Title IX’s sexual harassment regulations, according to Paul Southwick, a lawyer whose organization, the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, represents Penales.

Penales’ complaint against Baylor waits on a decision from an attorney investigator in the Dallas office of the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

What will this mean for schools like Baylor?

The Department of Education’s decision to grant this religious exemption will likely set a precedent for other Christian schools, including those in North Texas such as Dallas Baptist University and the University of Dallas, said Steven K. Green. Green is a law professor at Willamette University and the author of Separating Church and State: A History, which explores how religious liberty laws in the U.S. have changed over time.

The Supreme Court has recently become very deferential to religious institutions, Green said, to the point where these institutions often no longer need to justify why their religious exemptions apply in different situations. Referring to Penales’ case, Green said, Baylor is “trying to have a preemptive decision from the Department of Education, so it doesn’t even have to go into court and defend any of these actions.”

Representatives for Baylor declined to comment on Green’s characterization, citing the ongoing investigation.

Shiwali Patel, a lawyer who specializes in Title IX cases and a former employee of the Department of Education, said it’s dangerous to reduce outside accountability for sexual harassment at colleges and universities. “Federal enforcement, it pushes institutions to do more and to do better by students.

“What’s to stop them from continuing to discriminate and continuing to sweep harassment under the rug?”

Why are Baylor affiliates criticizing the school?

In their letter titled “Our Faith Does Not Discriminate,” Baylor affiliates and Baptist ministers said the exemption request mischaracterized the school’s governance and the nature of the Baptist faith.

Affiliates challenged Baylor’s claim that it met the bar for religious exemptions — namely that it is controlled by a religious organization with religious tenets that run counter to Title IX policies.

In a statement to The Dallas Morning News, Baylor spokesman Jason Cook said the Department of Education’s letter included an extensive review of Baylor’s board structure and approved the school’s exemption based on that governance. Cook also cited Baylor’s letter to the department, in which the school described its affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Baylor removed itself from the religious control of this convention in 1990, said the Rev. George Mason, an influential Dallas pastor, making it “duplicitous” for the school to now cite religious control as the basis for a Title IX exemption.

“The argument that was made in 1990 is the argument that should be upheld today, and that is a recognition that Baptists do not have a history of doctrinal tenets that churches, individuals or universities must adhere to in order to be consistent with their religious values,” said Mason, lead adviser for the Baptist House of Studies at Southern Methodist University’s Perkins School of Theology.

“We are not organized as Baptists around doctrine. We historically have respected freedom of conscience and the pursuit of truth, wherever it may be found.”

Joy Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.

Baylor student groups back unofficial LGBT group's latest bid for charter

Waco tribune | Rhiannon Saegert | Oct. 24, 2020

Baylor University’s unofficial LGBTQ student group has reapplied for official student group status, this time with the backing of the Student Senate and student NAACP chapter.

Gamma Alpha Upsilon is the newest name for the unofficial LGBTQ student group at Baylor University. Last semester, a faculty member started anonymously lending the group a lecture hall to serve as a designated meeting space, one of the things the group cannot get from the university unless it recognizes them as an official student group. GAY Vice President Jake Picker said the group has applied for a charter every semester for the past 10 years, and the university has always declined.

“They decline and don’t really say anything to us about why they declined,” Picker said. “But we’re really hoping this semester, things will be different.”

In the past, university officials have said the Gamma Alpha Upsilon organization runs afoul of Baylor’s statement on human sexuality, found in the student policies and procedures, which states students are expected to not participate in “advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Picker, who was a member of GAY last semester, said he is more hopeful this year in light of support from Baylor’s Student Senate and Baylor NAACP, along with the United States Supreme Court’s recent ruling that LGBTQ people are protected under the 1964 Civil Right Act.

He said the group continues to grow each semester.

Veronica Penales, who identifies as queer, co-authored the Student Senate’s “No Crying on Sundays” resolution in support of GAY with Addison Knight, Bethel Tesfai and Marisol Villarreal. Penales said the resolution, which passed 33 to 14, is an appeal to the Baylor Board of Regents.

“It is essentially an addition of a nondiscriminatory clause to the Baylor student activities policy of chartering student organizations,” Penales said. “Our ultimate goal with that was to charter the unofficial LGBT group on campus.”

Villarreal said she and Tesfai ran on a diversity platform, and she was “crushed” when a similar diversity and inclusion bill did not pass last semester.

The measure’s title refers to a line by Mary Lambert in the song “Same Love” by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis. Lambert also sings the refrain, “Love is patient. Love is kind.”

“To me this bill is very important,” Villarreal said. “I did it for my friends and family who are in the community and I wanted to make sure future Baylor bears that come to campus are fully represented.”

The bill references a petition that circulated last semester calling for the university to recognize the group. It received more than 3,000 signatures from alumni and faculty and coincided with the formation of the group BU Bears for All. Penales launched a second petition specifically for current students after the measure passed.

“This is strictly for the current Baylor student body so that the regents know that Baylor students are backing this,” Penales said. “If they support the students like they say they will, hopefully some change will happen.”

Baylor NAACP also voiced support for Gamma Alpha Upsilon in a statement. President Lexi Bogney said her chapter includes LGBTQ members and allies, but their reasons for supporting the group are broader.

“While the NAACP may focus on race-based discrimination, we don’t tolerate discrimination at all,” Bogney said. “For this organization to not be able to be chartered because they have beliefs that may contradict Baylor’s values, it still contradicts Baylor’s statement as a whole.”

Bogney said the university’s statements of support for LGBTQ students contradict official actions.

GAY officers met with the Board of Regents last semester to discuss their experience on campus, and Baylor President Linda Livingstone announced the university’s intentions to better support LGBTQ students in a statement in August.

In a statement, the university said officials appreciate the Student Senate’s role in representing Baylor students, but pointed out the resolution is nonbinding and the final decision lies with administration and the regents.

“Both previously have made a strong public commitment to provide a loving and caring community for Baylor’s LGBTQ+ students,” according to the statement. “This commitment remains unchanged today, as it is embodied in Baylor’s mission that calls us to educate students within a caring community.”

The statement outlines the resources available to LGBTQ students, including the Title IX Office, Bias Response Team, Chaplain’s Office and Spiritual Life, and the Counseling Center. It also cites the university’s decision to allow the group to meet in the borrowed classroom over the past year.

Student Senate to vote on motion leading to LGBTQ+ acceptance

Baylor Lariat | Emily Cousins | Oct. 22, 2020

The statement on human sexuality in the Baylor University Student Organization Policies and Procedures has long barred Gamma Alpha Upsilon, an unofficial LGBTQ+ group, from becoming an official organization on campus. However, the Student Senate is about to vote on a bill that could change everything.

On Oct. 22, Shreveport, La., sophomore Veronica Penales and Boerne sophomore Addison Knight, both senators, will propose the “No Crying on Sundays Resolution” to the Student Senate. The co-authors of the bill said they are committed to fighting for equality and diversity on campus.

This bill is being proposed the day after Pope Francis expressed support for same-sex marriage in a documentary released Oct. 21. This is another game changer for the LGBTQ+ community in relation to Christianity.

“We’re asking [The Board of Regents] to reinterpret Baylor’s human sexuality statement that has been changed and updated,” Penales said. “So the most recent copy we have is the one that … was established in 2009, and now it’s 2020, so we’re asking them to once again reinterpret the human sexuality statement in hopes of getting a nondiscriminatory clause placed into the Student Organization Policy and Procedures Guidebook.”

Knight said the bill refers to bill SR 66-14. The senate resolution, which passed in spring 2019, asked Baylor to change how student groups are defined, which would have allowed Gamma Alpha Upsilon to operate on campus without being officially chartered.

“It didn’t allow them to be a full chartered organization,” Knight said. “A lot of small steps had to be made to get to this point, which is why it’s taken so long … We have to address it because discrimination can never be allowed to continue.”

The intention is not to ask Baylor to change their view on sexuality, but to reinterpret the statement and add a nondiscriminatory clause so the two can coexist, Knight said.

“We are asking the university to end its discriminatory practices against the LGBTQ+ community,” Knight said. “I’m not seeking out to change people’s religious views … but right now Baylor’s practices are harming LGBTQ+ students.”

This is not the first time students have wanted to go to the Board of Regents to ask for a reinterpretation of the statement on human sexuality, Penales said. This time, they are hoping with the Senate’s support of the bill, they will have more influence and credibility.

Penales said she hopes the Senate will pass the bill.

“I think the times are changing,” Penales said. “I think with the incoming freshmen that are also going to be able to vote in this session, I think it’s going to pass. I would like to say I have full confidence in that, but I’m trying not to let myself get too invested.”

Knight said she has confidence in her fellow senators to do the right thing.

“You know, I don’t want to say for sure that it will because bad things can happen sometimes,” Knight said. “But I do have faith in the people that the student body has elected, and just the fact that they’re going to realize that discrimination cannot continue at Baylor.”

Student Senators are unable to comment on their opinion of the bill until Oct. 22, when the bill is proposed, discussed and voted on.

This bill and movement to support LGBTQ+ students goes beyond current students on campus. It has also garnered attention from alumni and former faculty and staff members.

In 2019, when Matt Walsh was invited to speak on campus by the Young Americans for Freedom student organization, a petition was put together and signed by over 3,000 members of the Baylor community. The petition asked for LGBTQ+ student groups to be allowed to become official on campus to show a commitment to diversity of thought.

“As members of the Baylor family who love Baylor and believe in its future, our request is simple: let us not have that unfortunate chapter in Baylor’s history repeat itself, requiring us to look back in a few years and realize that we were on the wrong side of an issue of basic compassion and human dignity. LGBTQ students have waited long enough to be afforded the opportunity to organize officially on campus,” the petition said.

Skye Perryman ‘03, Jackie Baugh Moore ‘86 and Tracy Teaff ‘82 have been key alumni pushing for LGBTQ+ support at Baylor.

“We and thousands of alumni stand ready to support the university in any efforts to achieve equality and inclusion for all students,” Perryman, Moore and Teaff said via email. “Baylor is the only school in the Big 12 and in all of the Power 5 conferences that does not allow LGBTQ+ students and their allies to form student organizations for community and support. We know that student organizations are incredibly important in providing community, connection and safe spaces for students, and we and many alumni believe it is important for Baylor to provide the ability to officially form community to all Baylor students, including LGBTQ+ students.”

Gamma Alpha Upsilon has applied to be chartered as an official student organization every semester for the past 10 years. On Friday, Portland senior and president of Gamma Alpha Upsilon Emma Fraley said the group plans to apply to be chartered again, regardless of the outcome of the Senate vote.

“We want the bill to pass,” Fraley said. “If that happens, then we’re obviously in a little bit better position as far as chartership goes, but even if that doesn’t happen, we’ve applied for a charter every single semester for the last 10 years, so I fully expect that process to happen just the same way this semester.”

Fraley said being a member of the LGBTQ+ community at Baylor can be challenging because it feels like the university doesn’t recognize them and allow their voices to be heard.

“I think that Gamma can really be that place for a lot of people to remind them that we are all welcome here at Baylor University, and we can fight for our own spaces to be recognized in that way,” Fraley said. “To find people who are like-minded can really be helpful for support in times of need. That’s really my goal for this organization is to really be there for our members when they need us most.”

Not everyone agrees that LGBTQ+ organizations should be officially chartered on campus. Fort Worth senior Zachary Miller, chair of Young Americans for Freedom, said it is not fair to make demands of the Board of Regents.

“Baylor has two choices — it can charter this organization or it can maintain its affiliation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas,” Miller said via email. “It cannot do both. As Baylor claims to be ‘unapologetically Christian,’ it seems that they should favor the latter.”

However, Knight said Baylor’s commitment to be “unapologetically Christian” is the exact reason why this bill needs to pass.

“I think religion is a beautiful thing. I think love is a beautiful thing,” Knight said. “The love of Jesus Christ has inspired me for a very long time, and it’s that love, it’s that commitment to the teachings of love within the Bible that should convince everyone to support this bill and to support LGBTQ+ students at Baylor because they’re not feeling the love that Jesus Christ sets out in the Bible, and that love above all is is what’s important.”

Fraley said God’s grace is the only thing that can change people on the way they view the LGBTQ+ community. She said the best she can do is live as a queer Christian and not be ashamed of who she is.

“I’m very, very excited for some things that, you know, we’ve got coming up in the future,” Fraley said. “And I certainly believe that this bill is something that is going to be really, really good for the school, and I sincerely hope that it passes.”

LGBTQ community fights for rights at Baylor, in Waco

Baylor Lariat | Meredith Howard | Oct. 6, 2020

Homosexual behavior is described as a temptation and issue by Student Policies and Procedures. However, students who are part of the LGBTQ community cannot be subject to disciplinary action or a loss of university financial aid on the basis of their sexual orientation.

The same could not be said 13 years ago.

Baylor’s sexual misconduct policy in 2007 included “homosexual acts” along with “sexual abuse, sexual harassment, sexual assault, incest, adultery [and] fornication.” This means that students could be subject to disciplinary action for their sexual orientation.

“The sanctions that the University may impose against a faculty member or a staff member for an act of sexual misconduct range from censure to separation,” the policy said.

Faculty members could be fired for not being straight.

The policy also said that when considering sanctioning, “constructive forgiveness will guide all efforts.”

Baylor was not the only institution in Waco that discriminated on the basis of sexual orientation.

Carmen Saenz, founder of InterWaco LGBTQ Community Group, lived in New York City during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s. She compared Waco’s atmosphere for LGBTQ individuals in 2002 to that of New York in 1980.

“Coming from Brooklyn, and coming from New York City, the climate for the LGBT community in — I moved to Waco in 2002 — was significantly different,” Saenz said. “When I moved here, it was almost like being thrown back to the 80s, when things were so bad in New York City.”

Saenz said when she founded InterWaco, it consisted mostly of “friends’ children that were queer, were lesbian or trans.”

“There was a young girl who went to apply for a job at a store, and the manager actually said to a young person, ‘We don’t hire your kind,’ meaning we don’t hire lesbians,” Saenz said. “I realized that there wasn’t an advocacy group here in McLennan County or Waco for anybody — whether it’s teenagers, same-sex marriage, housing equality, anything.”

InterWaco members began meeting in early 2012, and the organization partnered with Equality Texas later that year. Equality Texas “works to secure full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer Texans through political action, education, community organizing and collaboration.”

“We did something called the Equality Project, which was bringing people together to learn about advocating at the state level with our legislators,” Saenz said.

InterWaco is a political advocacy group that meets in person about once every other year to prepare for the legislative session. The group also works with schools to mitigate “LGBT bullying.” COVID-19 has prevented them from going into schools for the past year.

“We’ve worked with a few Baylor professors about finding more inclusiveness in their classrooms when they’ve had a student who’s trans, and it’s their first exposure to the trans community, and I think it’s a good thing that some of the professors have reached out asking thoughtful questions rather than just be dismissive to students,” Saenz said.

Saenz said the organization often refers these inquirers to the Transgender Education Network of Texas or other education groups depending on the nature of the question.

While InterWaco focuses primarily on LGBTQ legislative issues, Waco is also home to organizations that function more as support groups.

Central Texas Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) houses a couple of groups like this, including gatherings of women who are HIV positive and providing church space for people who are trans to get together.

Charley Garrison, who’s been the church’s pastor for over 20 years, said the inspiration for the trans support group came from posting resources for trans people on the church website. People began to respond to this page with a need for support.

“I began getting phone calls from people. I remember several times meeting in clandestine meetings with people from Baylor, at a location that they felt comfortable in, just to talk about what it was like for them,” Garrison said. “They needed someone just to talk, and so from there, I think it evolved into an actual support group.”

The church’s mission is “to proclaim the truth that God’s love is for everyone, no exceptions,” Garrison said. He also said that the church welcomes everyone, and its services are currently being held over Zoom at 11 a.m. on Sundays.

In 2010, another group began meeting in MCC’s basement. This was the Waco Queer Alliance, now Gamma Alpha Upsilon, Baylor’s unofficial LGBTQ student organization.

Dr. Ada-Rhodes Short, a Baylor alumna, co-founded the group.

Short said she hadn’t thought about whether Baylor was affirming to the LGBTQ community until Welcome Week.

“I arrive as a freshman, and it was like Welcome Week, and I found out you’re like not allowed to be gay here. This is bad. I’m a very queer teen,” Short said. “I guess at the minute I felt like, ‘Oh god, I bet I’m like the only queer person on this campus.’”

Short said she quickly realized she was surrounded by other members of the LGBTQ community. They were just “not allowed to be out.”

“We’re meeting in the basement of the Metropolitan Community Church — just like a bunch of queer Baylor students having a potluck — and we were like, ‘We should probably do something, but none of us want to get expelled.’ A lot of us were freshmen, and then a few upperclassmen,” Short said.

The following spring of 2011, Garrison contacted Short and connected her with a then senior at Baylor, Samantha Jones, who was interested in starting an LGBTQ student group.

“Sam and I meet, and we kind of just like immediately connect and are like ‘oh, this is a great idea.’ We spent a lot of time trying to figure out a name for the group because Sam had already started trying to figure out how do we get this chartered. We knew we couldn’t call it gay straight alliance or anything like that; having ‘queer’ in the label was definitely not allowed,” Short said. “Eventually we arrived at Sexual Identity Forum.”

More than 50 students came to the Sexual Identity Forum’s first on-campus meeting, which was held at the Bill Daniel Student Union Building. The New York Times interviewed Short and Jones about the group around that time, leading to a national spotlight being shone on Baylor’s stance on human sexuality.

“We got a lot of attention, and it was a really bizarre thing because I went from being like a little freshman who was terrified of being seen and exposed and kind of like expelled to suddenly being like ‘oh yeah, we’re just having a big gay riot at the Student Union Building,’” Short said.

Jones was the Sexual Identity Forum’s first president, and Short was the second. Short said they met with the Board of Regents, vice presidents, the president and other administrators about getting chartered. They were rejected and have been rejected every year since (and sometimes twice a year, when they’ve filed each semester).

“So we would sort of apply for a charter once a year, meet with Kevin [Jackson] or whoever the person we were meeting with that term was, be denied, know we were going to be denied, just get kind of stuck in this thing where like queer students exist; queer students will continue to exist at Baylor,” Short said. “We are not going anywhere. We refuse to go back to being afraid of being expelled.”

Short said the size of her group provided security because she said it would not look good for Baylor to “expel 50 queer students.”

LGBTQ students continue to exist at Baylor. Los Angeles senior Jake Picker is the vice president of Gamma Alpha Upsilon, and he said that the group now has almost 100 active members on its Discord channel, where groups of students will plan impromptu study times and hangouts.

Picker said that Gamma has still brought in a lot of freshmen this semester despite COVID-19, and numbers remain strong.

While Short said that she enjoyed meeting in the SUB to “take up space” as LGBTQ people, some of Gamma’s current membership prefers to meet more privately, as a way to protect members who may not be out yet.

A Houston junior who is an officer with Gamma spoke on the condition of anonymity because she is not out.

“When I first learned about Gamma, from the get-go I wanted it to be more private because I was constantly concerned with who would find out because there are, I mean, a good number of people who go to Baylor, and they’ll walk around on campus who know me and my family personally, and I guess I was always concerned, especially when I was a freshman, about someone seeing me at one of the meetings,” she said.

She said the first time she went to a Gamma meeting, someone who lived next to her in her dorm saw her and began to treat her differently as a result.

“She just would like glare at me in the halls, and like make a noticeable effort to go around me if she ever had to pass by me in the halls, and I thought that it was a little bit weird, and then at one point I was washing my hands in the bathroom, and she came in, she looked at me and we locked eyes, and then she just glared at me again, and she pivoted and turned around and walked away,” she said. “It was just — I don’t know — really kind of enhanced that insecurity and that fear that I had of not feeling like my identity was safe or private because we met in public.”

A Presidential Perspective email was sent out in August 2019 reinforcing Baylor’s stance on Human Sexuality. The specifications are as follows:

“Baylor is in compliance with Title IX and other federal and state regulations regarding the services and the support we provide to our LGBTQ students.

Students are not disciplined or expelled from Baylor for same-sex attraction.

In addition to the ongoing presence of many caring, trusted faculty and staff members, Baylor provides resources for LGBTQ students through the Title IX Office, Bias Response Team, Chaplain’s Office and Spiritual Life, and the Counseling Center.

Baylor counselors do not practice or condone conversion or reparative therapy.”

In October 2019, Gamma announced it had secured a private meeting space in Marrs McLean Science Building. Picker said the group had a faculty member book that space for them, since they are unable to as a non-chartered organization.

Gamma Alpha Upsilon’s first in-person meeting of the semester was held on Oct. 1 at Common Grounds. Gamma members would like to hold another in-person meeting this semester, but due to COVID-19 concerns, future scheduling is up in the air. Online meetings have been held as well.

Picker said the group still submits a charter request every semester and continues to be denied.

“We’re hopeful for the future,” Picker said.

The organization will celebrate its 10-year anniversary next semester.

*Editor’s note: a New York Times article linked above in this story refers to Dr. Ada-Rhodes Short before she was out as transgender, so it uses a name and pronouns that she no longer claims.

Supreme Court Delivers Major Victory To LGBTQ Employees

NPR | Nina Totenberg | June 15, 2020

In a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. The ruling was 6-3, with Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump's first appointee to the court, writing the majority opinion. The opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court's four liberal justices.

"Today," Gorsuch said, "we must decide whether an employer can fire someone simply for being homosexual or transgender. The answer is clear." He found such discrimination is barred by the language in the 1964 law that bans discrimination in employment based on race, religion, national origin or sex.

The decision is a huge victory for the LGBTQ community and a major loss for the Trump administration, which had sided with employers in three cases before the court.

Two involved employees who sued after contending they had been fired because they were gay. One of them, Gerald Bostock, won awards for his work as a child welfare coordinator for Clayton County, Ga, but said he was fired after he joined a gay recreational softball league. As he told NPR in October, "Within months, I was fired for being gay. I lost my livelihood. I lost my medical insurance, and I was recovering from prostate cancer at the time. It was devastating." The second case involved Donald Zarda, a now-deceased skydiving instructor who was gay.

The third case was brought by Aimee Stephens, who had worked for six years as a male funeral director in Livonia, Mich., but was fired two weeks after she told her boss that she was transgender and would be coming to work as a woman. She died earlier this year, but her case lived on.

Gorsuch couched his opinion in terms of the text of the 1964 statute and its ban on discrimination because of sex.

"It is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating ... based on sex," the justice wrote. He gave the example of two employees attracted to men — one male, the other female. "If the employer fires the male employee for no reason other than the fact that he is attracted to men," but not the woman who is attracted to men, that is clearly a firing based on sex, he said.

The Gorsuch opinion drew two dissents, one from the court's other Trump appointee, Brett Kavanaugh, so that Trump's two appointee were in a verbal version of what Yale Law Professor William Eskridge called "trench warfare."

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote the lead dissent. It accused the majority of sailing under a "textualist flag," essentially pretending to remain true to the words of the statute but instead updating it "to better reflect the current values of society."

John Bursch, who represented the funeral home in the transgender firing case, agreed. "They followed the culture, not the law," he said.

Gorsuch acknowledged that Congress in 1964 likely did not have the LGBTQ community in mind when it banned discrimination based on sex. But he said the words of the statute are clear. And he pointed to several major court rulings since the law's passage have read it expansively — for instance, to bar discrimination against women because they have children and to ban sexual harassment against both women and men.

As Gorsuch said of Title VII, "the limits of the drafters' imagination supply no reason to ignore the law's demands."

At the end of his 33-page opinion, however, Gorsuch invoked several potential caveats.

He noted, for instance, that some employers might have valid religious objections to hiring gay or trans workers. But he added that worries about how the 1964 civil rights law "will intersect with religious liberty are nothing new," pointing to the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act as a "super statute" that may offer a potential lifeline to employers who object, on religious grounds, to hiring gay and trans individuals.

That said, Monday's ruling was remarkable in many respects. Nearly half the states have no legal protection for LGBTQ employees. Now, the federal law will protect employees in those states from firing and other adverse employment decisions made on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The decision is a direct rebuke to the Trump administration, which sided with the employers in these cases, and has used its rule-making power to issue new directives that take away previous protections for transgender individuals.

Although LGBTQ advocates acknowledge that there may well be legal bumps ahead, Stanford Law School professor Pam Karlan voiced her optimism that few LGBTQ workers will face discrimination from large employers such as corporations, hospitals and universities.

"We didn't see really anybody other than the Conference of Catholic Bishops come in and make an argument that there are large numbers of employers who refuse as a blanket matter to hire people who are lesbian, who are gay or bisexual or who are transgender," said Karlan, who argued one of the Title VII cases before the Supreme Court in October.

Yale's professor Eskridge agreed. He noted that the liberal Supreme Court of the 1960s, headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren, interpreted an immigration statute that barred psychopaths from entering the country to apply to homosexuals.

"LGBT people have come a long way in the last generation; the country has come a long way in the last generation; and the Supreme Court has come a long way in the last generation," said Eskridge, who is the coauthor of a forthcoming book, Marriage Equality: From Outlaws to In-Laws, about the history of same-sex marriage equality in the United States.

Evan Wolfson, founder of Freedom to Marry, added, "One big lesson from this opinion is don't give up. You have to believe that you can change things."

Speaking to reporters, Trump said of the ruling: "They've ruled and we live with the decision of the Supreme Court." He called the opinion "very powerful."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, praised the Supreme Court's decision in a statement, saying, "Today, by affirming that sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination are prohibited under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Supreme Court has confirmed the simple but profoundly American idea that every human being should be treated with respect and dignity."

The opinion is available here.

Emmett Witkovsky-Eldred contributed to this report.

These LGBTQ Students Say Their School Treats Them Like Second-Class Citizens

For years, students say they’ve faced harassment for their sexuality. At the very least, they want their club for LGBTQ students to have official status on campus.

The Nation | Mary Retta | December 2, 2019

One night in 2018, senior Kyle Deserosiers was walking across campus with his boyfriend. They were holding hands. Another student, seeing them, turned and yelled, “Faggot!”

It was hardly the first time Deserosiers was ridiculed for his sexuality at Baylor University, a private Christian university in Waco, Texas. Administrators, students, and even professors, he said, have made lewd comments and jokes about queer and trans people in front of him, both in and outside of class, during his four years at the school.

Students have gone further to say that this kind of discrimination against the LGBT community is built into the very foundation of the university. Until 2015, same-sex displays of affection were a violation of the student handbook and considered a punishable offense. All residence halls are separated by binary gender. Many students, including Deserosiers, have heard rumors that the school has accepted sponsorships from homophobic companies that support conversion therapy. Students like Desrosiers feel that the school operates in a way that only recognizes the humanity of the cisgender and heterosexual student body. “I have had experiences that make me feel like I don’t belong here, like I’m an outsider, and that this is not the community for me,” Deserosiers said. “This discrimination needs to be investigated.”

One frustrating aspect of this has been that since 2011, the university’s administration has refused to officially recognize Gamma Alpha Upsilon, the school’s unofficial LGBTQ club. According to Anna Conner, a senior at Baylor and the vice president of Gamma Alpha Upsilon, the organization applies every year to be officially chartered; each year, it is rejected. Official recognition would grant the group funding and the ability to officially rent out spaces or bring speakers to campus, among other privileges. “They’ll tell us that something is wrong with the application, or that the organization doesn’t coincide with the student code of conduct,” Conner said. “We’ve reached out to the regents and various faculty and administration, but we haven’t had any luck meeting with anyone about it.”

In July, the club leadership board contacted the Big 12 Conference and the NCAA, asking them to examine the university’s discriminatory policies. As Baylor consistently ranks as one of the top schools in the conference, students believed this would be the best way to garner a large audience for the issues they were facing on campus. The students argued that Baylor’s treatment of LGBTQ students is not compliant with Title IX laws, and that other universities in the Power 5 Athletic Conferences have better resources, protections, and spaces for queer students on campus.

“We write to you as current LGBTQ+ and allied Baylor University students and recent graduates who have been engaged in efforts to ensure that Baylor University’s campus is safe, secure, and hospitable to LGBTQ+ students,” wrote the students. “Having appealed to Baylor University’s leadership on multiple occasions only to still be faced with an unfair, unsafe, and discriminatory campus environment, we now see no other option than to appeal to the broader community of which Baylor is a part, including its athletic association.”

In response, Conner and Hayden Evans, another leader of Gamma Alpha Upsilon, received a letter saying that while the Big 12 stood in solidarity with the club, there was little that representatives from the conference could do to help.

On paper, Baylor’s Title IX mandate reads that the university “does not tolerate discrimination or harassment on the basis of sex or gender,” defining gender-based harassment as “harassment based on gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression.” According to Lori Fogelman, assistant vice president of media and public relations at Baylor, the university works to maintain those standards. “Baylor is committed to providing a loving and caring community for all students, including those who identify as LGBTQ,” she said. “Baylor is fully compliant with Title IX in its approach to LGBTQ issues.”

Students, however, say that the school’s actions toward the members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon signal otherwise. In August, Desrosiers penned an op-ed on the subject for the local newspaper, the Waco Tribune-Herald. “Besides enduring overt harassment and fearing violence, LGBTQ students at Baylor face second-class citizen status as a result of the university policies prohibiting us from forming student organizations and being fully recognized in the campus community,” he wrote. “While some who discriminate against LGBTQ people may seek to justify their discrimination through reference to religious belief, Baylor tellingly has not in recent years sought a religious exemption to the nation’s civil rights laws.”

According to Conner, Baylor administrators have told members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon that because the organization is “not biblical,” it is not in line with the university’s mission. Yet several students have argued that other nonreligious campus groups—such as the Campus Democrats and Campus Republicans—have gained official status from the university.

Religious universities like Baylor are allowed to claim exemption from Title IX regulations if they believe that following Title IX would violate their religious beliefs, a policy that many have found can encourage discrimination against the LGBTQ community. However, as a member of the Big 12 Athletic Conference, Baylor is unable to claim these exemptions. (In 2017, the Trump administration rescinded guidelines that allowed Title IX to apply to discrimination based on “gender identity”—that is, against transgender students.)

According to Conner, however, the university has found other ways to discriminate against queer students, such as upholding traditional heterosexual and cisgendered views of marriage in its human sexuality statement, a part of the campus’s sexual conduct policy. “The University affirms the biblical understanding of sexuality as a gift from God,” it reads. “It is thus expected that Baylor students will not participate in advocacy groups which promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.”

Conner’s response: “We are not an advocacy group, and we work very hard to not be considered an advocacy group, but the university still says that we are,” she said on behalf of Gamma Alpha Upsilon. “That way they don’t have to deal with us.”

This is not the only recent incident of Baylor’s attitude toward its queer students. In July 2019, after members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon and progressive Baylor alumni pushed for the university to bring in a speaker to discuss LGBTQ issues to alleviate tensions between queer students and the administration, the university chose to bring in Dr. Janet Dean, who had previously spoken at the college in February. She was asked to perform LGBTQ competency training for the board of regents.

Dean is the author of Listening to Sexual Minorities, a book that discusses three frameworks for how to treat queer students at Christian universities: an “integrity” model that focuses on changing sexual orientation; a “disability” model that treats LGBTQ identities as a health condition; and a “diversity” framework that emphasizes the importance of integrating queer youth into heteronormative society. Although the book does not directly mention conversion therapy, it does make repeated references to “healing” queer sexual orientation through prayer.

After word of this private meeting spread to the student body, Desrosiers sent a six-page letter to the Baylor chairwoman and the Board of Regents arguing that the university chose the wrong person to conduct the training and that her thoughts would contribute to the emotional and spiritual trauma of queer students at Baylor. “I got a response from the chairwoman saying she received my letter and would take it into consideration alongside other perspectives,” Desrosiers recalls. However, that week the university published a press release congratulating the board members for completing Title IX and NCAA sensitivity training. “This reflects the Board’s personal commitment to strengthening the University’s culture of compliance as we continue to do the right thing,” Chair Clements said in the press release.

Similarly, Baylor faced backlash last spring after an on-campus organization, Baylor Young Americans For Freedom—one of the four chartered conservative groups on campus—brought Matt Walsh, a conservative columnist for The Daily Wire, to speak on campus in April. In the weeks leading up to the lecture, a petition was created in opposition of Walsh’s presence on campus that received almost 3,000 signatures from Baylor students, faculty, and alumni. Although the petition did not stop Walsh from speaking at Baylor, this mobilization encouraged members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon to set up a meeting with the university’s board of regents to discuss the organization’s approval. The students quickly received a response from the school saying that as a private institution, Baylor “does not allow outside groups” to address the regents.

“We are literally students at the university,” said Jazz Aurora, a black transgender senior at Baylor who uses they and she pronouns. “We should not be considered an outside organization. That was the moment when we all sort of realized, ‘Oh, they are really not hearing us.’”

“Students have said hateful things about the queer community to my face, and I’ve been harassed while out with my boyfriend on campus,” Desrosiers said. “But I also think it’s important to recognize that there are students of color and transgender and gender nonconforming students who cannot ‘pass’ the way I can, and who have faced experiences that completely erase their humanity at Baylor.”

“Baylor has its own issues with race,” Aurora confirmed. “Being queer and a person of color at Baylor, it’s really hard to find people to connect with or relate to. A lot of times I find myself on the outside of both groups.”

Despite resistance from the university, members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon continue to fight for the club’s official status on campus. The organization applied once more for official status in March and is currently waiting on a response from the school, which can take up to 200 days. Members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon are also continuing to petition and organize, and have recently met with a lawyer to discuss their rights in the matter.

According to Aurora, even if Gamma Alpha Upsilon were to become officially chartered, there is still much work to be done in order for LGBTQ students to feel safe on campus. “We need sensitivity training,” they said. “I’m so tired of having to clarify that I’m transgender and have professors misgender me. If you’re the person at the front of the classroom, I would really appreciate it if you could address me in a way that doesn’t make me super uncomfortable.”

Gaining acceptance for Gamma Alpha Upsilon has been a struggle for almost a decade now, but students are determined to keep fighting. “Recognition would just mean that we exist,” Conner said. “It’s taken a long time for Baylor to recognize that LGBTQ students exist on campus. For them to say that it’s OK for us to be here and that there is a space for us to meet openly—that’s really all we’re looking for.”

OU Law's Queer Advocacy Group Supports Baylor LGBTQ Students

For Immediate Release:

“To all the rights of one person to be violated puts at risk the rights and liberties of all.”

These poignant words are etched into the foundation of the OU College of Law, reminding us that every day we must make a commitment to protecting those who need our advocate-voice. As the University of Oklahoma prepares to play Baylor University, all eyes turn to Waco, where the national spotlight will be centered on these two historic schools. As these two teams prepare to battle it out on the field, we are reminded of the battle going on behind closed doors.

Baylor remains the only school in the Big 12 Conference to deny equal rights and recognition to queer students. Further, Baylor is the only school in the all “Power 5” conferences to permit this treatment against the queer community. The pain experience by queer students on the Baylor campus cannot easily be summarized.

The time has come for us to unite in solidarity and denounce this dangerous policy.

Earlier this year, OUtlaw (OU Law’s queer advocacy group) began a grass-roots movement to join voices together across all campuses in the Big 12. It has become a common goal for students on every campus in the Big 12 Conference to let thousands of fans, students, and athletes know who we are. We ask that the Big 12 Conference devote resources to this conversation, and that it make a clear statement denouncing bigotry, racism, and intolerance.

Great rivalry must be paired with decency and community. We ask that the entire Sooner Nation join us in solidarity, supporting our friends at Baylor University. Show your pride in Waco this Saturday, as these two incredible institutions meet in primetime lights.

Respectfully, 

Trae Havens
Outlaw President
The University of Oklahoma College of Law

Baylor Student Activists Appeal to NCAA

LGBTQ advocates want the association to intervene and help break what they call a long-standing pattern of discrimination at one of the nation's most prominent religious institutions.

Inside Higher Ed | Jeremy Bauer-Wolf | August 7, 2019

Students and recent graduates of Baylor University, one of the country’s most prominent Baptist colleges, want the National Collegiate Athletic Association to examine the institution’s treatment of gay, transgender and queer students who say they have long faced discrimination on campus and in university policies.

These advocates wrote last month to Mark Emmert, the NCAA president, imploring the NCAA to investigate the university’s policies on LGBTQ issues. Most of those who signed the letter are officers of Gamma Alpha Upsilon (which spells out "GAY" in Greek letters), an LGBTQ student group that has sought official recognition from the university for eight years. Formally known as the Sexuality Identity Forum, the organization has been continually denied formal recognition, though the university has never publicly explained why.

The students assert in their letter that Baylor is the only member institution of the Big 12 Conference, one of the NCAA’s “Power 5” conferences, the most affluent and prestigious of the association's leagues, that “prohibits LGBTQ+ students from being officially recognized as part of the campus community.” Other major religious institutions in the Power 5 include University of Notre Dame and Boston College, both in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

A similar letter was sent to Big 12 Conference officials.

The authors of the letter to the NCAA also question whether Baylor complies with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, the federal law barring sex discrimination on college campuses, which also provides protections for gay or gender-nonconforming students. The Trump administration more than two years ago withdrew guidance issued by the Obama administration that allowed transgender students to use bathrooms and other facilities that matched their gender identities.

Religious institutions can apply for exemptions from Title IX if they believe following the law would violate their religious beliefs. But, as the students note in the letter, Baylor has not sought such an exclusion from the law.

“On Baylor’s campus, LGBTQ+ students regularly face harassment and discrimination whether it consists of being called inflammatory names during walks to class or being physically unsafe and threatened,” the students wrote.

It is unclear how the NCAA could intervene in Baylor’s practices. The association has previously condemned laws that are prejudicial against LGBTQ people and said it would not hold playoff games in states with such laws on the books. But it has not gone as far as to cut ties with religious institutions that have Title IX waivers, as was demanded by gay rights groups several years ago.

Baylor spokeswoman Lori Fogleman provided a written statement on the university's behalf: "Baylor is committed to providing a loving and caring community for all students, including those who identify as LGBTQ. We believe that Baylor is in a unique position to meet the needs of our LGBTQ students because of our Christian mission and the significant campuswide support we already provide to all students."

The NCAA did not respond to a request for comment. A Big 12 Conference representative declined to comment.

Baylor in 2015 removed references from its conduct code that explicitly forbade “homosexual acts,” as well as eliminated parts of the code that deemed same-sex acts as “misuses of God’s gift.”

But the university maintains a “statement on human sexuality” that discourages students from participating in advocacy groups that “promote understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching.” This would include “homosexual behavior,” according to the statement.

Gay rights advocates believe this statement is why Gamma Alpha Upsilon has not been accepted as an affiliated organization. Baylor’s rules on sexual conduct, which cite Baptist doctrine from 1963, also state that sexual intimacy must be “in the context of marital fidelity.”

A petition urging the Baylor administration to reconsider its refusal to formally recognize LGBTQ groups has gained more than 3,200 signatures since April. An opposing petition, advocating for Baylor to preserve its “traditions,” has also circulated on campus.

The opposition letter states that if Baylor officially chartered gay-friendly groups, it risked jeopardizing its long-standing affiliation with Baptist General Convention of Texas, the state representatives of the Baptist Church, from which the university receives millions of dollars in funding. The convention only recognizes heterosexual relationships.

Baylor’s Board of Trustees has declined to let Gamma Alpha Upsilon representatives speak during board meetings. Last month, board members heard a presentation by Janet B. Dean, an associate professor of psychology at Asbury University, a Christian institution in Kentucky, who has written about queer students’ experiences at religious colleges and universities, The Waco Tribune-Herald reported. Baylor president Linda Livingstone said that Dean’s appearance was beneficial for the board.

Activists remain frustrated that the trustees will not hear from them directly.

Tensions flared in April when a conservative group, Young Americans for Freedom, invited Matt Walsh, a right-wing blogger for The Daily Wire who holds antigay views, to campus. In promoting Walsh's appearance on campus, YAF, which the university granted formal recognition, posted fliers with an image of a hammer and sickle on a rainbow flag. The title of Walsh’s talk was “Why the Left Has Set Out to Redefine Life, Gender and Marriage.”

The Texas Tribune reported that the leader of the group said he did not intend to offend students and removed the posters, but by then many on campus were already enraged. A copy of the flier, the posting of which the university approved, was included in the letters to the NCAA and the Big 12.

“Baylor University officials approved inflammatory fliers … targeting LGBTQ+ people. This flier was posted throughout campus. Yet LGBTQ+ students are denied the ability to advertise or organize in any recognized way,” the students wrote.

Kyle Desrosiers, a rising senior at Baylor who identifies as gay, wrote in a column in the Tribune-Herald that the administration’s failure to protect him and students like him was “cruel.”

He described being harassed on campus for holding hands with his boyfriend and hearing classmates and professors make jokes about his sexuality in class.

“My experience is not unique,” he wrote. “This pain is shared among a sizable population at Baylor University. Trans and gender-nonconforming students face a far greater level of harassment and exclusion on campus. For many of us, experiences of alienation and marginalization result in a strain on our mental health. Worse, we are often afraid to turn to the Baylor Counseling Service or Title IX [office] for fear of losing academic and professional opportunities at Baylor.”

Baylor regents meet with LGBTQ student group

Waco Tribune | Rhiannon Saegert | November 10, 2019

While the unofficial LGBTQ student group at Baylor University remains unofficial, a few things have changed.

Members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon got a chance to address the Baylor Board of Regents during the regents’ meeting last week, a first in the school’s history. The students requested a meeting with the regents in a letter sent in July. Vice President Anna Conner addressed the board, along with fellow GAY members Kyle Desrosiers and Charis Merchant. They discussed their own experiences, as well as the experiences of other LGBTQ students on campus.

“We got pretty personal with those stories, and it caused emotions to run high in the room,” Conner said.

The board took no action and the group will continue to seek a charter making it an official student organization, but Conner said the regents seemed receptive. In previous semesters, requests to speak to the regents had been turned down because of the group’s unofficial status.

“I think we really made an impact with them,” Conner said. “It was a panel, so it was just the three of us. We talked for an hour.”

Regents had discussed LGBTQ students during a retreat this summer, and Baylor President Linda Livingstone announced the university’s intentions to better support LGBTQ students in a statement in August. Livingstone also announced a discussion series focused on having civil conversations about difficult topics. The announcements came after a group of students and alumni emailed the Big 12 Conference and the NCAA in August, asking the organizations to re-examine the university’s treatment of LGBTQ students.

A more recent incident drew more criticism. A guest speaker in American sign language senior lecturer Lewis Lummer’s class, Jari Saavalainen with New Life Deaf Community Church, gave a presentation that veered off-course. When a student asked about Saavalainen’s work, he pulled up a website for a conversion therapy organization that specifically targets deaf Christians. Saavalainen continued to present in ASL for about 10 minutes.

Celia Scrivener, a nursing major from Marshall who is taking ASL as a foreign language, snapped a photo and posted about the incident on Twitter. Coincidentally, Scrivener is a GAY officer.

“My jaw dropped,” Scrivener said. “No one in the class seemed comfortable with it at all. I’m very stereotypical looking, it’s not a secret to anyone that I am gay. It kind of singled me out in front of that group of people. It was a lot of uncomfortable-looking faces, especially mine.”

She said she does not blame Baylor for the incident and has not experienced anything comparable in her time as a student there.

“If anything I think it was a lapse in judgment on the part of Dr. Lummer,” Scrivener said. “Baylor didn’t even know until the internet knew.”

Lummer apologized in an email to students the next day and explained he had not known what the guest was going to talk about ahead of time.

“I grew up going to Christian schools. … I’ve never been in a class where, all of the sudden, conversion therapy is on the board,” Scrivener said. “Especially not in an ASL class, where that doesn’t have anything to do with my understanding of a language.”

A Baylor spokesperson said the incident “does not align with the institution’s stance regarding conversion therapy.”

“Throughout the fall semester, President Linda Livingstone has had a focus on civil discourse in which we all strive to understand and be respectful of differing opinions,” according to the university’s statement. “The university does have a policy for students who believe a faculty member has treated him or her unfairly with respect to a course for which the student was registered. We encourage students in the class to exercise the appropriate procedures.”

Now, a faculty member anonymously provides GAY with a room on campus to use for meetings. One of the reasons the group continues to seek official chartered status is so it will be allowed to rent meeting spaces on campus.

“The group has worked hard to offer the kind of relationships and care they hope others will provide,” said Jon Singletary, who is dean of Baylor’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work and describes himself as a friend and ally of the students. “This organization has worked hard to show the kind of respect for others that we hope to receive.”

Conner said the room provides an extra layer of safety that has allowed students who were uncomfortable with the group’s public meetings to join.

“It’s nice to see people who didn’t usually come,” President Elizabeth Benton said. “There’s a lot of new people here.”

The first meeting of the semester had about 40 people.

“It was a lot of people who didn’t know we existed came, a lot of people who wanted to show they supported us, and also new students as well,” Conner said. “It’s pretty well-known now.”

Conner said the most common refrain they hear from critics, “Why come to Baylor if you’re gay?” is one they are all tired of.

“There’s people who were forced to come here. There’s people who are legacies. There’s people who didn’t know about their identity until they came here,” Conner said. “Then, there’s people who say ‘This is the best school and they gave me the most money. It’s the highest ranking, and I’m not going to sacrifice my academic future because they say I shouldn’t exist.’ ”

Baylor professor apologizes after guest speaker promotes conversion therapy

The incident is just the latest at the Christian university to highlight an unwelcoming environment for LGBTQ people, some students say.

by Liam Knox | NBC NEWS

An American Sign Language professor at Baylor University apologized to his students this week after a guest speaker he invited promoted conversion therapy during his presentation.

The Rev. Jari Saavalainen, a pastor at a deaf church in Chicago, was asked to talk Tuesday about missionary work with deaf people, and professor Lewis Lummer said he did not anticipate the presentation would include any mention of conversion therapy.

Having the subject broached in a sign language class made it all the more shocking, students said.

Celia Scrivener, who heard the talk, said she wasn’t even paying attention, but as the only gay student in class, her peers looked to see her reaction.

“[Saavalainen] pulled up this website and I was looking away at the time ... but a friend of mine who sits right next to me grabbed the edge of my desk,” she said. “I looked up and my jaw just dropped.”

Lummer has since apologized.

Lori Fogleman, the university’s vice president of media relations, wrote in an email to NBC News that Baylor “does not practice or condone” conversion therapy.

She also linked to an August statement from President Linda Livingstone, who said the Christian university in Waco, Texas, is “committed to providing a loving and caring community” for LGBTQ students.

While Scrivener doesn’t blame Baylor for the guest speaker’s surprise endorsement of conversion therapy, she said the university has a lot of work to do if it wants to live up to its purported commitments.

Scrivener, a junior, is in charge of social media for one of the university’s only LGBTQ student groups, Gamma Alpha Upsilon (or GAY, as it looks spelled out in Greek). The organization was

formed in 2011, when homosexuality was still listed as a punishable offense in Baylor’s code of conduct. The clause was removed in 2015.

But the group’s main purpose — to provide a space for LGBTQ students on a campus where they are often discriminated against, by the institution and fellow students — is as relevant as ever, Scrivener said.

Even so, the university has denied Gamma’s application for a student group charter every year since its founding, in accordance with university policy against recognizing LGBTQ-affirming student groups.

The group only just recently secured a room on campus to hold meetings, and even that’s only because an anonymous faculty member registered it for them, Scrivener said.

“They can go on and say that ‘we want our own students to feel loved and accepted and welcomed on campus’ and all of that, but then they just don't really do anything about it,” she said. “They just say, ‘We're having these conversations.’ And, you know, we're getting a little tired of conversations that don't lead to anything.”

Anna Conner, Gamma’s vice president, said Baylor’s official position affirming “the Biblical understanding of sexuality” emboldens students and community members to harass LGBTQ students, and erases the identities of the students themselves.

“A lot of people who are against the LGBT community feel that they are allowed to say and do things without facing any punishment by the school,” Conner said. “So we exist to have this group where people can be open about their identities.”

Conner, a senior, said the group had been wary of stirring controversy over the last eight years. But this year, after a public conflict with conservative student group Young Americans for Freedom, that’s changing.

“We thought that if we damaged our relationship with [Baylor], then we might not even be allowed to do the very small things that we can do,” she said. “Baylor doesn't openly accept LGBT people. But it's just now starting to change because we've been so public about this issue.”

Scrivener added: “We just kind of stopped being so silent and decided to let them have it.”

The students have support from alumni, as well. Skye Perryman, who graduated in 2003, is one of a group of alums who formed BU Bears for All, which is calling on Baylor to rescind its policy against recognizing LGBTQ-affirming student groups and make the campus a more welcoming place for students of all backgrounds.

The group’s letter to university administrators in support of LGBTQ students has received over 3,200 signatures.

“There has been a groundswell of alumni support for LGBTQ students at Baylor, and in particular calling on Baylor to change its policies that marginalize and fail to recognize LGBTQ students as fully part of the campus community,” Perryman said.

Baylor’s policies have had real consequences for queer students. Conner said that despite frequent cases of homophobic harassment, including queer students being yelled at and followed home by some of their peers, the university has been ineffective at addressing their complaints.

“It's very difficult to get LGBTQ students to report actual cases of harassment or physical violence or anything like that because all the stories we have of people that went through with that are very negative,” she said. “It eventually came to a point where people just gave up or they're like, ‘It's not worth it. I'm just gonna have to deal with this trauma on my own or with my friends, because Baylor is not going to support me.’”

Conner, who identifies as both queer and Christian, said the university is caught between a false choice of affirming LGBTQ identities and holding onto its Christian beliefs.

“There's this perception that if Baylor adopts an acceptance of LGBT people, then they immediately lose some type of Christian status. And that's just not true,” she said. “You can still be affirming and be a Christian, you can still be gay and be a Christian.”

Scrivener said the school’s “biblical” understanding of sexuality is demeaning, but she loves attending Baylor and doesn’t want to let hate get in the way of her college education.

“The main response to us is, ‘Well, then why did you come to Baylor?’ Like ‘You chose to come here, deal with it,’” she said. “And all of us are in agreement, that we weren’t going to put our sexuality above getting a very good education. I love Baylor with everything in me … I am so glad and proud to go here.”

Administrators agree “there is more we can do to support our LGBTQ students,” Livingston said in his “Statement on Human Sexuality.”

Conner said she believes Baylor wants to make itself a more welcoming place for LGBTQ people. She and other Gamma members met last week with the university’s Board of Regents, and she’s “cautiously optimistic” about the future of LGBTQ equality on campus.

“If we manage to keep up the pressure and keep talking about the issues, I think something will change within the next few years,” she said.