Northwestern’s anti-discrimination policy protects individuals on the basis of categories such as sex, race, and religion, but one student group is beginning a campaign to show something is missing.
The Rainbow Alliance began a movement recently to add “gender” to NU’s policy, which is published in the student handbook. They plan to circulate a petition in coming weeks, and eventually hope to push NU to provide gender-blind options for housing and restrooms, too.
The anti-discrimination policy already lists “sex” and “sexual orientation.” But gender has to do with how a person sees himself or herself, whereas sex refers to a person’s biological characteristics and sexual orientation relates to who someone is attracted to, said Mykell Miller, Rainbow Alliance tech chairman and a McCormick junior.
“For transgender students, it means a lot because transgender students are discriminated against all the time in many ways,” Miller said.
For example, forms often require students to identify themselves as male or female, Miller said. This could be an issue for students who were born as one sex but identify with another.
The initiative is also important for the larger NU community because it has to do with how students or others are seen in relation to their gender, versus how they want to be seen, supporters said.
“A girl could be seen as too feminine to play rugby or a boy could be seen as too feminine to join a frat,” Miller said.
“For example, I have short hair so people see me as masculine and Northwestern currently does not protect against that,” said Marissa Faustini, a Weinberg junior and Rainbow Alliance member.
NU and Washington University in St. Louis are the only schools listed in U.S. News & World Report’s top 15 national universities that do not have such a provision in writing. Several schools in the Big Ten have clauses for gender protection, including University of Iowa and University of Michigan. In 2002, Brown University became the first Ivy League school to change its policy, and the other seven Ivies have followed since.
NU’s Associated Student Government voted to support the inclusion of a gender protection clause in the school’s anti-discrimination policy in 2005, but the issue lost momentum, said Andy Cray, a Communication senior. Cray and Mugsie Pike, a Communication sophomore, decided to restart the campaign a few weeks ago.
“We believe the university wants to protect its students from discrimination,” Cray said. “It’s in the best interest of everyone.”
Their flyers around campus question sexual identity, asking questions such as “Do genitals make a man?”
A Facebook group for the initiative reached more than 100 members a few days after it was started.
“It’s been going really well,” Pike said. “We started flyering the other day. We’ve talked to academic departments and other student groups, and they’ve received it warmly.”
Reach Sean Walsh at [email protected].
