By Staff, World News Magazine
NEWBERG, Ore. – A Christian university in Oregon must decide where it stands theologically and legally as it responds to an anti-discrimination complaint filed last week by a transgender student.
The student, referred to in legal documents as Jayce M., came to George Fox University in Newberg, Ore., about 25 miles south of Portland, as a woman but has been in the process of legally, and physically, changing her gender.
George Fox University administrators met throughout the year with Jayce, now a sophomore, to figure out where she would live once she legally became a man. Because student housing at George Fox is single-gender, campus officials proposed that Jayce live alone on-campus next year.
Jayce had requested to live in an on-campus apartment with a group of male friends, Jayce’s attorney, Paul Southwick said.
Southwick is a Portland attorney and a George Fox alumnus who heads up an advocacy project for LGBT students on Christian college campuses. He said he met Jayce through other students he knows at George Fox.
Southwick filed the Title IX discrimination complaint on April 4 and also helped Jayce’s mother prepare a petition supporting Jayce on Change.org.
“Jayce is a Christian and he’s happy to go to a Christian university,” Southwick said. “He also doesn’t see anything being incompatible with being a Christian and living with a transgender identity.”
Southwick said he saw “no clear directive from scripture or spiritual leaders” against attempting to change gender, though “there’s clearer passages regarding homosexual conduct.”
George Fox is a Christian university founded by Quakers in the 1880s. It is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. The statement of faith on its website says, “We believe that God inspired the Bible and has given it to us as the uniquely authoritative, written guide for Christian living and thinking. As illumined by the Holy Spirit, the Scriptures are true and reliable.”
The university is subject to Title IX, which requires schools to provide equal student housing to students of all genders, Southwick said. Based on an attorney’s advice, a university spokesman declined to comment further on the college’s legal or theological defense for its position.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights will be responsible for investigating the complaint and deciding whether George Fox has violated Title IX’s anti-discrimination rules
Cultural Shift on Marijuana
A new Pew Research Center survey reveals that three-quarters of Americans believe marijuana will eventually be legalized nationwide. By the same margin, survey participants said people caught with small amounts of marijuana should not face jail time.
Public sentiment about marijuana has changed drastically in the last few decades. A majority of people now say alcohol is more harmful than marijuana, both to individuals and society at large.
About 67 percent of respondents said the government should focus more on offering treatment to people who use harder drugs, like cocaine and heroin, rather than imposing stiffer criminal penalties. And, 63 percent say they approve of states’ decisions to move away from mandatory sentences for non-violent drug offenders.
Gay Rights Groups Force Mozilla CEO to Resign
Brendan Eich stepped down from his post as Mozilla’s CEO after gay rights groups lambasted the company for promoting a leader who supports traditional marriage.
In a statement posted online, Mozilla chairwoman Mitchell Baker said Eich was stepping down for the good of the company, which he co-founded. She also apologized for promoting him from his position as chief technology officer in the first place.
“We didn’t act like you’d expect Mozilla to act,” Baker wrote. “We didn’t move fast enough to engage with people once the controversy started. We’re sorry. We must do better.”
The company, which created the popular web browser Firefox, promoted Brendan Eich from chief technology officer to its top leadership position on March 24.
It is worth noting that Eich co-founded Mozilla and invented JavaScript, one of the web’s most ubiquitous programming languages.
In 2008, Eich gave $1,000 to the campaign to pass Proposition 8, the constitutional amendment that banned same-sex marriage in California. A lower court ruling struck down the amendment, and the U.S. Supreme Court left that decision place last year.
Eich’s contribution was publicly reported then and he faced some criticism for his stance. But his promotion to CEO last week whipped the old criticism into a firestorm.