News out of Belmont State in Tennessee last week included the announcement that women's soccer coach, Lisa Howe, resigned under pressure from university administration.* The impetus?Howe's same-sex partner is pregnant. The issue of "can they do this?" is complicated by the fact that Belmont is a private Christian university. So we shall have to see what--if anything--comes in terms of legal action.
Meanwhile, Howe's situation has sparked some action. Students at Belmont have staged a sit-in at the university president's office. They are urging the university to stop discriminating against gay people. Of course the university and Howe say that Howe's departure had nothing to do with sexuality. Hmmm...
Despite this argument, the university faculty senate, in the wake of Howe's departure, passed a resolution stating that gay and lesbian faculty and students should be welcome at the university.
We shall see what more comes of this...
* A new statement says that Howe was neither fired nor resigned but that she and the university officials came to the decision that her leaving the university would be mutually beneficial.
No comments:
Post a Comment