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Faculty expands equal opportunity policy |
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Thursday, 06 March 2008 |
by BRITTANY PENLAND
Intern News Reporter
During Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, members approved the motion to include gender identity, gender expression, sex, and political affiliation into the Appalachian State University Equal Employment Opportunity Policy (EEO).
The Faculty Senate approved the motion in anticipation of amendments to the EEO policy on the state level.
“Appalachian, in the past, has shown leadership in terms of extending protection to populations who are
not necessarily protected at the state level,” member of the Faculty Welfare and Moral Committee Beth
Davison said. “We [need to] continue to show leadership in this area by extending employment
protection rights to our [transgender] population on campus.”
 The Faculty Senate meeting held Monday in I.G. Greer Auditorium discussed revisions to policies such as an update to the no-discrimination policy to include sexual orientation. Photo by Alisha Park
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According to the pre-existing policy, Appalachian State is committed to equality of educational opportunity and does not discriminate based on race, color, national origin, religion, gender, age, disability, or sexual orientation.
“It’s starting to look like a really long list, but if we’re going to not discriminate, we need to not
discriminate, and if political affiliation is an issue for the state or for anyone, then maybe it should also
be proactive in other areas other than gender issues,” Vice Chair of the Faculty Senate Eric Marland
said.
The Faculty Senate agenda stated over 100 colleges and universities nationwide have already added
gender identity and expression to non-discrimination policies.
“I would say gender identity is more of a perspective that one’s sense of self does not necessarily
match one’s biological sex,” Davison said. “Gender expression is more social where, instead of the
usual dichotomous expressions of femininity and masculinity, there is a sense of continuum,
regardless of biological sex.”
Appalachian recently altered the student housing policy to accommodate transgender students.
University employees also share similar affirmation.
Campus Planning Committee member Patrick Rardin recalls hearing about a male who was fired from
his job for wearing dresses to work.
“Now I don’t know why the guy wanted to wear a dress, but that may fall under gender expression and
he just decides that he’s going to start wearing earrings and dresses,” Rardin said. “Unless this is
actually explicitly stated [in the policy], an individual could be fired from their job for doing that.”
Later during the meeting the new motion of the EEO policy also omitted “gender” and replaced it with
“sex.”
“We ought to scratch the word gender and put sex there, and then rather than gender identity, just put
gender. Given the new terminology, [the previous] document no longer addresses the issue of
discrimination based on sex. We now need to actually state that we are not going to discriminate based
on sex,” Rardin said.
The state level is now contemplating the inclusion of sexual orientation, while Appalachian State has
included sexual orientation in the EEO policy for over 10 years.
“I feel like this [policy] is a very inclusive statement and that sometimes it does have to be spelled out
very specifically,” Davison said.
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