Boston College administrators have agreed to change the school's statement of nondiscrimination to make it more welcoming to gay students and employees, but the revision stops short of prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Jack Dunn, a spokesman for the Catholic university, said the compromise was drafted last week and is expected to become policy after further internal review.
Three weeks ago, a campus rally in support of gay rights drew 1,000 people. Student activists have lobbied for changes in the nondiscrimination policy for more than three years, since BC appeared on a list of gay-unfriendly colleges published by the Princeton Review. The university's nondiscrimination statement pledges compliance with laws against discrimination based on race, religion, age, sex, and other protected criteria, but because Massachusetts law includes an exemption for religious institutions with moral objections to homosexuality, the policy doesn't grant the same blanket protection to sexual orientation.
A spokeswoman for the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in Washington, D.C., said 21 of the nation's 28 Jesuit campuses include the words sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies. She could not say how many schools offer full protection. The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, which chose to forgo the state's religious exemption, does include sexual preference alongside age, race, and gender.
Student activists scored a victory in 2003, when the university's president, the Rev. William Leahy, agreed to grant official recognition to a gay-straight student alliance on campus.
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