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.

Students ask Big 12, NCAA to examine Baylor's LGBT policies

Waco Tribune | Rhiannon Saegert | August 2, 2019

Baylor students have written letters to both the Big 12 Conference and the NCAA, asking the organizations to evaluate the university’s treatment of LGBTQ students.

“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,” both letters begin.

The authors of the letters include members of Gamma Alpha Upsilon, an unofficial student group that has been seeking recognition from the university since last year, as well as other current students and recent graduates.

“In recent months, LGBTQ+ students have faced particular targeting and harassment on Baylor’s campus, leading thousands of people with connections to Baylor University — alumni, students, parents, current and former faculty members, former trustees, ministers, and faith leaders — to ask that the university reverse its course of discrimination against LGBTQ+ students,” the letters state.

Both letters request that the entities assess Baylor for Title IX compliance in reference to LGBTQ students and closely examine Baylor’s treatment of them as a whole. A Baylor spokesperson said the university is fully compliant with Title IX, a federal law that prohibits discrimination by educational institutions on the basis of sex.

“Baylor is committed to providing a loving and caring community for all students, including those who identify as LGBTQ,” the spokesperson said. “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 letters come just on the heels of Baylor’s Board of Regents’ meeting with psychologist Janet B. Dean on the subject of LGBTQ students. During a press conference after the meeting, university President Linda Livingstone said Dean was picked because she has spoken at Baylor before and has studied the experiences of LGBTQ students on Christian college campuses for years.

Dean did not respond to requests for comment for this article. “Listening to Sexual Minorities,” a book Dean co-authored, summarizes years of research on the topic and personal accounts from gay, lesbian and bisexual students at Christian colleges.

The book discusses three frameworks for examining the topic: an “integrity” model focused on changing sexual orientation, a “disability” model treating LGBTQ identities as a condition to be managed, or an affirming “diversity” framework. The book does not directly mention so-called conversion therapy, which has been discredited, but makes repeated references to “healing” sexual orientation through prayer.

“Perhaps Christian Communities would do well to reflect on ways to integrate the best of each of these three lenses for healthy, holistic identity development,” the book states. “We haven’t yet seen too many examples of such an integration of frameworks, but we see the need.”

Kyle Desrosiers, a senior in Baylor’s Honors College, wrote Regent Chairwoman Jerry Clements and Livingstone a letter criticizing the decision to bring in Dean two days before the meeting she attended. By chance, he had attended a presentation she gave at Baylor earlier this year and said he found Dean’s perspective disturbing.

“Her anecdotal evidence was stories about people who were queer on Christian campuses, but because of pressure from the church or what they call Christianity, had chosen to give up their sexual orientation and gender identity,” Desrosiers said. “It was very disturbing, because that was the only time I’d heard of any kind of LGBTQ event at Baylor.”

In the meantime, conversations continue far from Baylor campus. BU Bears For All, an organization formed by the authors of an open letter pushing for recognition of LGBTQ student groups at Baylor, is seeking nonprofit status with the goal of pursuing policy changes at Baylor.

The authors of the open letter, Baylor alumni Skye Perryman, Jackie Baugh Moore and Tracy Teaff, said to end discrimination on campus, the university would have to make tangible policy changes.

“It means encouraging (as opposed to discouraging) faculty and others on campus to be vocal in their support of LGBTQ+ students,” they said in a statement. “It means allowing LGBTQ+ students to organize officially and to participate in the life of the campus in all ways that other students are permitted to and to ensure that no student is deprived of any opportunity as a result of their sexual orientation or gender identity.”