I'm lazy/don't know if I want to rewrite and relive everything, but yet I feel like I should update people on what's been going on. The following is something I wrote for a secret group on Facebook that I'm part of. It's a group of (mostly) LGBTQ people who (mostly) hold to Side B ideals, which has been great and I've been learning a lot from them.
I wrote this back on Nov 7th, 2014, so pretend like it's 4 months ago...
----
Nov 7, 2014
So I was almost expelled from my graduate school yesterday.
Apparently, a couple of people in the dorm (just passing by, related to on-campus organizations, but not to the school) have seen me and the other gay student hugging, and deemed our hugging as inappropriate/too sexual/more-than-friends. So, they complained, and the Center that my school is on told my school that since we're students at this school, they should deal with it.
Instead of giving us a warning or something, the Dean of Academic Affairs (for some reason, the DAA handles disciplinary action and not the Dean of Students here?) asked us to meet him individually and gave us both a behavioral probation (my friend on Monday, and me on Tuesday), which I attached to this post.
Basically, we aren't allowed to be in each other's dorm rooms alone without the door open (reasonable--the rules at the dorm are no members of the opposite-sex in a room with the door closed), no physical contact that could be construed as intimate, and no being a leader at my school. Failure to observe these terms would result in expulsion. Since I'm president of the Student Body Association, I have to step down, technically immediately, although they're letting me finish out the term which ends in December.
I kind of want to resign immediately because of all of this, but at the same time, my school needs an SBA to be accredited and I don't want to just throw them under the bus for what they're doing to me. They see it as not "dragging me through the mud" but every person I've talked to about this has been outraged and perplexed at the administration as to why I didn't get a warning for doing something that I didn't even know could lead to behavioral probation. The only conduct guideline we have (besides you know, things that are against the law like abuse/sexual harassment) is in the Catalog as "their conduct should honor Christ in all activities on and off campus" which is what they're putting us under probation for. What infuriates me is that they don't know my, or my friend's, life. It's been a difficult semester (see my previous post about t-shirts), and the hugs have been tension/stress-releasing, which I think is Christ-honoring. Supporting my best friend here is Christ-honoring, I thought?
Also, you don't even have to sign a statement of faith to come here, so non-Christians can come to the school. Apparently, the DAA told us that non-Christians would be expected to abide by Christian moral standards (makes sense, they're an institution and can have whatever standards they want) as well, but I'm not sure how they will abide by what they deem as Christian ethics when the only conduct policies are the typical no abuse/sexual harassment, and "honor[ing] Christ in all activities on and off campus."
Anyway, the DAA was kind enough to let us take the document home and process it, and apparently he got flack for not just making us sign it on the spot. We asked about the appeal process on Wednesday, and he told us about it yesterday, but also in that email told us that we had to get the document back to him by the end of the day, or be expelled. In which case, we wouldn't be able to appeal, so we pretty much had to sign it, but we could write "Under protest" to indicate that we weren't agreeing with the decision/process.
Strangely, the DAA kept telling us that this was the "most redemptive" way he could think of, and the "most gentle" way to do this. He thought that the Center was extremely gracious--he thought they were going to kick us out of the dorm and my school would have to fight for us to even be students here, so I guess in light of that, this situation is better than that. But he also told us that he could have given us a warning, and the Center would have allowed that, but he chose not to.
Comments/questions/thoughts about the whole situation? Are they being unjust? I'd like to hear what you think. I've been in tears, anxious to the point where I can't sleep at night, and just scared. Like, man, I am SO close to being expelled. Never thought I'd say that. I wish I had known it'd be like this before deciding to come to the school.
Some friends have encouraged me by saying that God will use this for good. And I believe that. I can see an important conversation to be had about what is the conduct that is actually expected of students here, and for making rules about that. I realize that some people last time said to fight against them implementing a dress code, but I'd rather they put in a dress code than just put people on probation for violating some dress code in the administration's head.
But still... I'm tired of the Christian cray here.
No comments:
Post a Comment