UMD has had its embarrassments with cultural intolerance in the past. Now, a new roster of LGBT-friendly schools contrasts that.
UMD received praise as a top 25 school on a roster of the nation’s most LGBT-friendly colleges and universities. The list has generated some buzz with a post on the widely-read Huffington Post and the UMD Homepage.
But the high rating doesn’t sit well with UMD’s Queer Allied Student Union (QASU).
“I feel that it’s totally inaccurate,” said UMD senior and QASU Board Chair Katie Muller. “I mean, UMD’s great, but some things were a stretch.”
The list was assembled by Campus Pride, a national non-profit organization that aims to make universities across the nation safer and more LGBT-friendly. Sophomore and QASU board member Jacey Carlson sees an issue with the list itself.
“The fact that there’s a rating system for it is a testimony to the fact that it is a problem,” Carlson said.
QASU members are concerned that the university is over-zealously patting itself on the back. The list itself isn’t organized by schools with the highest scores, rather, it’s alphabetical. So, in truth, many universities that submitted themselves for rating received the same five-star score as UMD.
“The thing about the rating is, people will start thinking it’s no longer a problem. People will stop the fight,” said sophomore and QASU board member Monika Arbudzinski.
The Campus Pride Index rates schools with an “LGBT-Friendly Campus Report Card.” Each report card comes with a long list of criteria addressing the academic life, student life, policies and practices, campus safety and more. Most report cards come with ratings on an A-F scale; but this one is different. Muller says that’s a big problem.
“My complaint about the system is that it’s yes or no,” Muller said, pointing to the list online. “It says, ‘yes,’ for gender-neutral bathrooms, but we don’t have very many of them, and some of them you have to have a key to get into. It should be based off more of a spectrum.”
She believes that many of the “yes” ratings UMD received aren’t exactly deserving.
“It says that we have an ‘Ally program or safe space/safe zone.’ We do have a space, but this space doesn’t even fit all of the people we have [in QASU],” Muller said, referring to the QASU cubicle in the Multicultural Center. “Also, there are windows in this space, which is nice; but if somebody doesn’t want to be out, this isn’t really a safe space. For some people, that’s a big issue.”
Addressing another issue, Muller looks to the housing and residence life section of the report card. It gives UMD a “yes” for: transgender student options to be housed in keeping with their gender identity/expression, gender-neutral/single occupancy restroom facilities in campus housing, and training for residence life and housing staff at all levels on LGBT issues and concerns.
“That’s only if you’re coming to UMD with your identity. If you come out while you’re in the dorms, and your roommate has a problem, I’ve seen them say, ‘There’s nothing we can do,’” Muller said. “A friend of mine had that happen. The roommate moved all their stuff to the wall ‘so that nothing would touch.’ [My friend] had nowhere to go, so they slept on a couch for the rest of the semester.”
There is some controversy on this issue. UMD sophomore and Resident Advisor (RA) Rachel Cook said that there was specific training on this subject.
“We went through hypothetical scenarios and had to brainstorm what we would do in that situation,” Cook said. “For example, if a person came out about their sexuality to their roommate and it caused problems between them.”
With that debate aside, the QASU Board is in agreement with one aspect of the report card: a “yes” to insurance that covers hormone therapy for students transitioning from male to female or female to male.
“I’m really proud of the U for that,” Muller said. “They pay 80 percent of the cost for hormone therapy. Some other insurance companies would say that it’s cosmetic because it’s something they went out of their way to do. We’re way ahead of the field in that one spot.”
Some of the work QASU still wants to see done includes their collaboration with the UMD LGBT Commission and Student Association to get more gender-inclusive housing and bathrooms. But overall, they want to see a better campus climate where students don’t have to be scared to show who they are.
“I don’t want people to just start congratulating themselves because we still have a lot of work to do,” Arbudzinski said. “It’s good to see us on a list. But it shouldn’t be our main focus, the students should be. The end goal is not to be on a top 25 list. The end goal is for all students to be absolutely comfortable, absolutely accommodated, and absolutely happy.”
BY MAEGGIE LICHT licht096@d.umn.edu