The University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Ky., has found itself amid a controversy after the school expelled a student because of his sexual orientation.
Theater arts sophomore Jason Johnson, 20, was dismissed from the university April 6 after school officials found his MySpace.com Web page, which contained a declaration of his homosexuality and comments mentioning his boyfriend, Eastern Kentucky University student Zac Dreyer.
“I met with [the Vice President of Student Services] and the Dean of Student Life, who showed me a printout version of my MySpace page,” Johnson said. “They asked if it was mine, I said it was and they read me [a] policy in the handbook.”
President James Taylor said in an April 19th statement that Johnson violated the University’s code of conduct.
“Jason was suspended by the University for violating the University’s code of conduct, which clearly states that students should not engage in sex outside of marriage, including homosexual acts, and that students who engage in such conduct may be suspended,” Taylor said in the statement.
The university’s Student Government declined to comment, referring all questions to Larry Cockrum, the university’s director of media relations. Cockrum provided only Taylor’s written statement as a response.
Taylor had also released an earlier statement to a local news station in Lexington, Ky., in which he made some controversial comments.
“University of the Cumberlands isn’t for everyone,” Taylor said. “We tell prospective students about our high standards before they come. There are places students with predispositions can go, such as San Francisco and the left coast or to many of the state schools.”
Taylor later changed his statement, removed the San Francisco comment and included, “We are different by design and are non-apologetic about our Christian beliefs.”
Johnson called those statements ignorant and bigoted.
“It’s ignorant to think students at school aren’t gay, don’t drink and don’t have premarital sex. It’s a college – a group of kids between 18 and 24 [years old]. To single out one student for one aspect of that policy is part of the injustice,” he said.
Crawford Leavoy, executive assistant for LSU Student Government, said Johnson’s expulsion is a “sticky situation.”
“The most important thing to remember is that it’s a private institution able to create its own student doctrines and policies, and therefore, there really is no legal problem with what they have done,” he said. “Though I would very much like to see a movement in the U.S. Congress to further those discrimination policies they already have to sex orientation.”
Johnson said news of his dismissal caused mixed emotions around campus, from anger to panic. He said there are many other students on campus who are gay, drink and have premarital sex.
“A lot of people were very scared,” he said. “People have things on their MySpace pages which [could be incriminating]. They were all in a scramble to get rid of all this stuff on the Internet that had a possibility of pointing back at them. They were afraid Cumberlands was going to go on a witch hunt and start kicking people out right and left.”
The university itself also had reason to worry.
The Kentucky Legislature allocated $11 million to the University of the Cumberlands, a private institution, to establish a pharmacy school and complement tuition for its students.
After Johnson’s expulsion, public backlash has raised a call to have that funding taken from the school.
Kentucky Sen. Ernesto Scorsone, D-Lexington, told The Daily Reveille there may be a challenge to the school receiving the funding.
“It becomes a situation where the state is putting in place a program that would only be available to heterosexuals,” Scorsone said.
Scorsone, the only openly gay member of the Kentucky Legislature, said there are no Kentucky or federal statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. But he said the Kentucky Fairness Alliance – a statewide group that fights for equal treatment of gay Kentuckians – filed a lawsuit to block the school’s funding.
State Rep. Kathy Stein, D-Lexington, also has publicly called for the university to return the funding.
“This goes back to the question, ‘Is this a private school or not?'” Scorsone told The Daily Reveille. “Clearly, private enterprises can conduct themselves in a way that would never be acceptable for a public institution. That’s why a lot of people objected, but the law doesn’t prohibit it outright. But once they cross the line and start accepting state money, then they’re bound by different standards.”
The position of the university also conflicts with the discrimination policies of the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, which has the final authority to accredit new and existing pharmacy schools in the United States.
The organization’s revised guidelines for accreditation, which take effect on July 1, 2007, state in Guideline 16.5 that: “The college or school must establish and implement a policy on student services, including admissions and progression, that ensures nondiscrimination as defined by state and federal laws and regulations, such as on the basis of race, religion, gender, lifestyle, sexual orientation, national origin or disability.”
But Peter Vlasses, the ACPE’s executive director, told the Associated Press on April 19 that accredited institutions would only be forced to abide by state statutes banning discrimination, and Kentucky has no such laws for gays.
Taylor’s statement said the university does not plan to change its student code of conduct.
Johnson, who was planning to transfer from Cumberlands at the end of the year anyway, reached a settlement with the university that, while still forcing him to leave the university, allows him to receive credit for his classes and retain good transfer standing. He has enrolled at EKU and said he is not seeking legal action against the university.
“I’m using this story to, hopefully, open a lot of people’s eyes to inequality,” he said. “People deserve equal rights to go to small schools with religious affiliations. Their sexual orientation has nothing to do with their education. It’s part of social life, not education.”
 
Contact Parker Wishik at [email protected]