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Virginia College Students Fight State’s Attorney General

March 9, 2010 RSS Feed Print

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Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has a fight on his hands, and it's one he had to know was coming. The recently elected Cuccinelli wants Virginia public universities to abandon policies designed to protect against discrimination based on sexual orientation. It's a controversial stance, and students are fighting back.

College students at Virginia's public universities are furious with Cuccinelli, the Washington Post reports. Even with many schools on spring break this week, thousands of students—from Virginia Tech, the University of Virginia, and the College of William and Mary to Virginia Commonwealth University and Christopher Newport University—have started Facebook groups and planned rallies against Cuccinelli's requests.

"I've never gotten so many E-mails from students wanting to do something," Brandon Carroll, president of the student government at Virginia Tech, tells the Post. Any erosion in gay rights at state universities is "going to make us lose top students. It's going to make us lose top faculty."

Cuccinelli asked the state's public universities to pull sexual orientation from their policies because such language required approval by the state's General Assembly. Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell says he agrees with the legal reasoning behind Cuccinelli's request, the Post report says.

"There's a long list of opinions. It's all separation-of-powers issues," McDonnell tells the Post. "But that doesn't mean that a governor can't say to his managers, 'I will not tolerate discrimination in this administration.' "

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Tags:: LGBT rights,; discrimination,; colleges,; Virginia

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it was made clear as a matter of law via Article VI of the constitution
and the Treaty of Tripoli …”As the Government of the United States of
America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion”…
There is also the 1st Amendment's establishment clause
that makes it a violation to establish religious doctrine as a matter of law.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli and Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell
can hold as big a FNORD-A-thon as they like, but the universities
are well within their right to uphold the constitution of
The United States of America and need not ask permission to do that.
Veiled attempts to sneak religious doctrine in through a side door
are non the less unconstitutional , and in so doing
Mr Bob McDonnell has violated his oath of office
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support the
Constitution of the United States..."

DrClue of CA 9:54PM March 14, 2010

I think Cuccinelli's thought here is that amendments to Virginia's human rights laws must be enacted by the Virginia Legislature, and not by the state's public university faculties. Taken in the abstract, he is correct in this respect. I am reminded of the old common law quo warranto writ, which allowed inquiry into the source of authority for the actions of public officials. It should be taken as a given that Virginia's public university faculties and presidents do not possess and cannot exercise the legislative authority of the State.
But I don't think these public university non-discrimination policies rise to the level of attempted legislation. For example, I doubt there is a private right of action in court for violations of these policies. These are simply administrative policies of the institutions concerned, like a "don't walk on the grass" sign or a "no dorm parties after 2:00 a.m." rule or a university personnel policy, with similar consequences for their violation.
I also think that in one important respect, you get what you pay for. A very close state oversight of university policies was understandable in the long-ago era when Virginia funded most of the cost of its public universities. But the Legislature, over many decades, has de-funded the State's public universities to the point where, at my alma mater (U.Va.), the law school receives $0 annual support and the State's support for the undergraduate colleges is substantially less than 20% of total costs. If the state's not payin' the bill, these schools, with considerable justice, should be able to tell the state to butt out of internal policy-making.
If I still lived in Virginia, I would oppose amendments to the state's human rights laws to grant protected class status based on sexual preference. But still I think Cuccinnelli blew it here.

Maine Lawyer of ME 11:36AM March 12, 2010

We all know a lot of heterosexuals--moms and dads, their moms and dads--who are accepting of the wisdom in "Live and let live." Many of them even say it of gays and encourage equal rights for them.
Then there are others who have trouble understanding why gays should have equal rights and have even more trouble letting folks live their lives unless they're lived according to their own "righteous" principles. And guess who knows what those principles are? Yep. The ones who are living them and who just know gays aren't. They're the morals police for the rest of us and will, at a moment's notice, be ready to help us straighten up and fly right.
A few of these people apparently live in Virginia, a dying breed in the matter of gays, thankfully, but still willing to help us all along on the road to understanding how their version of right and wrong is the only acceptable version.
In a world where death by shooting happens far too often, where drugs headed north are the reason for thousands of deaths just south of our border, and where the arms are supplied from north of that border by the arms maker to the world, we're supposed to worry about WHAT? The rights of people, gays, who just want to live in peace and with the freedoms everyone else enjoys?
Get real, Virginia: hetero bigotry in Virginia looks ugly and is. Good going, students who are protesting. Keep up the good effort, and let's all get on to real problems in this country.

Ron W. Smith of UT 5:32PM March 10, 2010

Virginia College Students Fight State’s Attorney General

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