You’re not as important as race, gender identity
Last month Stanford University’s Board of Judicial Affairs rejected a proposal by a student veteran to include “military affiliation” or “veteran status” in the institution’s guiding statement on student conduct.
It took the board six months to inform Adam Behrendt, president of the Stanford Undergraduate Veterans Association, that these categories do not belong alongside “race, color, national or ethnic origin, sex, age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or socio-economic status” in the Fundamental Standard. Its explanation: Military categories are implicitly covered.
After The Stanford Daily asked the administration for an explanation of why the other categories are explicitly mentioned, however, Behrendt told the Daily that the Office of Community Standards quickly reached out to the Organization for Military-Affiliated Communities, “offering to re-engage.”
Yet the school has apparently screwed over him and other “military-affiliated communities” again.
According to the Daily, OMAC Assistant Director David Rice met with the Office of Community Standards to “further discuss the decision” on March 6:
Since the meeting’s occurrence, however, Behrendt told The Daily there has been “no immediate change in consideration” of the proposal.
Following this article’s original publication, OCS confirmed in an email to The Daily that the decision had not been reversed.
Stanford didn’t recognize “veteran status” or even “marital status” in its separate nondiscrimination statement until last year, also at the prompting of Behrendt, according to Inside Higher Ed. He told the Daily that adding the language took 10 days.
The minutes from the Jan. 31 board meeting don’t indicate specifically why members rejected military affiliation in the Fundamental Standard, only that they discussed how Behrendt’s proposed language “fit with ‘protected’ status” and its relation to “other University documents,” according to the Daily.
Read the Daily and earlier Inside Higher Ed story.
MORE: Stanford takes 6 months to refuse to protect veteran status
IMAGE: Cheryl Casey/Shutterstock
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