The Washington Post is reporting that Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has issued a directive calling on state colleges and universities to rescind their policies banning discrimination based on sexual orientation. Cuccinelli says that the schools’ boards do not have the legal authority to enact such policies, and that only the state Legislature has that right.
The Virginia Legislature, by the way, voted this week, once again, to reject a law protecting people against anti-LGBT discrimination.
Cuccinelli wrote: “It is my advice that the law and public policy of the Commonwealth of Virginia prohibit a college or university from including ‘sexual orientation,’ ‘gender identity,’ ‘gender expression,’ or like classification as a protected class within its non-discrimination policy absent specific authorization from the General Assembly.”
The Post notes that “all of Virginia’s leading schools” have adopted such policies, and that Cuccinelli’s order is likely to “spark outrage” among the students and faculties at those schools.
In fact, the Post quoted, Vincent F. Callahan Jr., a former Republican member of the House of Delegates who serves on the Board of Visitors of George Mason University, who said, “What he [Cuccinelli] is saying is reprehensible. I don’t know what he’s doing, opening up this can of worms.”
And Carl Pucci, president of the student body at Old Dominion University, told the Post, “It’s going to be a mess. There’s no doubt about that. Our generation is really open-minded. The concept of discrimination, we’re just not interested in that…I think you’re going to see the whole gamut, from angry letters to protests.”
But there are those who are applauding Cuccinelli’s effort. They include Chris Freund of the Family Foundation, who “applauded Cuccinelli for his consistency.” The Family Foundation has long argued that laws protecting people from anti-gay discrimination are unnecessary and do not help schools attract the best students and faculty.
Look,if VA doesn’t want gay people why don’t they put up a big “Gays not welcome” sign? That seems to be the intent of their new Gov & AG and their legislators,too. Enough is enough.We shouldn’t add one red cent to their coffers- no non emergency travel to VA,spend your money in DC or MD- at least they acknowledge we’re human beings!
That’s fine.
The new policy is NO WOPS ALLOWED.
The Student Body President at Old Dominion University is Daniel Sanford, not Carl Pucci. kthanks.
It’s really time to begin discussing a major boycott of Virginia. The new governor and AG are both rabid haters and homophobes who will stop at nothing to drive homosexuals out of the state.
Well, they say that they will rescind anti-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation but guess what they already rescind some of anti-discrimination policies without a notice from an attorney. Muslims are harassed every day at VCU, no full funds are provided to them, and lots of daily harassment words and actions are done against Muslims. when I discussed this matter with officials, they said that the statement they include in all VCU forms “Affirmative actions – equal opportunity” is simply a myth. The authoritative person adds “if Jews are discriminated against, then Muslims must be discriminated against”. They don’t work out the anti-discrimination policies that are already in-effect. The fact that they decided to rescind anti-discrimination policies based on sexual orientation is not surprising me based on my personal independent observations to the anti-discrimination policies that are just in officials papers and forms.
Virginia living up to fine reputation as a haven for hateful bigots, wingnuts, rich white jackasses crying cause no one wants hear there whining but Fox news
Just over a century ago, Virginia kept human beings as slaves — long after all European countries, and even most of former European colonies in the Americas had outlawed the practice.
Only Saudi Arabia and such kept slavery longer than did Virginia and their ilk in the United Statelets of a Belt of Land Between Canada and Mejico.
For the un-intelligent, oh I hate to use the ignorant word, the AG of Va simply stated Va law to the colleges and universities. FYI, the Va legislature, for the past 27 years have voted to not include discrimination based on sexual orientation in the Va laws. This is 27 years. Read that 27, for many of those years Va’s Senate and House had democrats in the Majority.
Need I repeat myself? No. So get your bigoted “if someone does not like what I do or say or wear or think, they are bigots” out of your head. People have their opinions, obviously Virginians have theirs. Oh, and go ahead and boycott Va, a state that is nearly energy independent, and consistently in the top 10 in major economic categories.
Hey, you want to live in California… New York, then you will have to pay the price. Oh, one is broke and the other is going broke. Enjoy.