Apathetic State University.
You've heard the moniker many times before, but when we use it this time, we're talking about how a group of students took that nickname, punched it in the face and showed it what's what.
The lobbying of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgendered and Queer/Questioning Coalition helped spur University officials to revise ASU's discrimination policy last week to include intersex and transgendered people. The cutting-edge move makes it the fourth public higher education institution to adopt such policy.
ASU and cutting edge?
Yes, we used both in the same sentence without having to say "porn" or "party school." Our University did something right, and we want to give it kudos.
Heck, Arizona is a state that didn't even celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day until the NFL forced it to. We're betting it will be one of the last states to recognize same-sex marriages. We're glad to see ASU stand as a progressive oasis in this desert.
Of course the crux of a university involves academics and research. And while we are proud ASU rakes in oodles of National Merit scholars and has professors who are in cahoots with the big giant heads at NASA, there is something to be said about being at the forefront of issues that don't always involve books and rankings.
College is where you get an education, but it is also where you can develop socially and learn to interact with a diverse group of people. The University's move will help foster more open-minded individuals, who will eventually have to interact with people in an even bigger world.
"Now we, in the queer community, can feel safe on our own campus," said Carlos Galaz, a gay student. "It is nice to know that we officially belong."
Galaz shouldn't need a piece of paper to tell him he belongs; he should have felt like he belonged regardless of an official University sanction.
The 14th Amendment might be written on a crusty piece of paper and enclosed in a fortress of glass, but that doesn't mean the value of its words are any less important: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Sadly, we haven't come far enough as a society that we can get by without strict antidiscrimination policies. But, if more institutions follow in ASU's footsteps, it will bring us a big step closer to that perfect world where equality exists without a crusty piece of paper.
