Belmont U Gives in to Protests

http://news.change.org/stories/victory-belmont-u-gives-in-to-protests-over-removal-of-lesbian-coach

I found this article searching on google, and it goes over how the female coach of Belmont University announced that she was having a baby with her partner, and then shortly thereafter the school removed her from the coaching staff after coming out as a lesbian.

What shocked me the most about this article was that the administration themselves announced how this was unrelated to her sexual orientation, yet the entire team was happy with her as a coach and a few players were even bold enough to state that when in question, the school commented that she violated the "dont ask don't tell" policy.

I hadn't heard of Belmont University before, but as I read through the article I found out that it was a christian college, so it made a bit more sense on why this coach was singled out. Through the players actions and continuing protest against the firing of their coach, there is now a law in the school that states that no one can be discriminated against due to sexual orientation (this wasn't in place before.)

This article came out January of this year, and I was pretty shocked to see that the date wasn't 5-10 years ago, but rather less than 6 months ago. I always assume that all schools now have a tolerance policy for all kinds of sexual orientation, but appearently there are still many out there that discriminate and terminate at will based on those specifics alone.

I really hope things change for this school and that the new policy in effect makes the administration rethink their outlook on students and faculty alike.



Michelle Fenn
T/Th 2 pm