SPU STUDENTS PROTEST BOARD'S DECISION TO MAINTAIN HOMOPHOBIC HIRING POLICIES

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https://southseattleemerald.com/2022/06/08/spu-students-protest-boards-decision-to-maintain-homophobic-hiring-policies/

SPU STUDENTS PROTEST BOARD’S DECISION TO MAINTAIN HOMOPHOBIC HIRING POLICIES
JUNE 8, 2022 EDITOR
by Guy Oron

(This article was originally published on Real Change and has been reprinted under an agreement.)

The Seattle Pacific University (SPU) board of trustees voted on May 23 to maintain their homophobic employment policies, to the consternation of many students, staff, and faculty. In response to the decision, queer students, staff, and their allies staged multiple protests including a walkout and a multiday sit-in outside the university president’s office.

Nearly 3,500 students attend the private evangelical Christian university, which is located in Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood. Because it is a private religious institution, SPU is able to discriminate against certain groups of people, including showing preference to Christians when hiring and expecting employees to refrain from behavior that violates their biblical views on human sexuality, including “cohabitation, extramarital sexual activity, and same-sex sexual activity.”

SPU defended the decision, saying that “[w]hile this decision brings complex and heart-felt reactions, the Board made a decision that it believed was most in line with the university’s mission and Statement of Faith.”

In January 2021, nursing adjunct professor Jéaux Rinedahl sued the university, alleging that SPU denied him a full-time assistant professorship because he is gay. Earlier this month, SPU and Rinedahl settled the case out of court, according to The Falcon, the SPU student newspaper.

According to SPU alum and former faculty member Dyana Herron, staff members were told not to contact applicants who had disclosed that they were gay, even if they were fully qualified, The Seattle Times reported.

The board of trustees vote came after a monthslong process spearheaded by the university’s LGBTQIA+ Work Group, which sought to reconcile the students, staff, and faculty members’ desires for the discriminatory hiring policy to be removed with the university’s desire to be aligned with its “denominational heritage.”

SPU is one of eight universities affiliated with the Free Methodist Church (FMC), an evangelical Christian group with nearly 70,000 members in the United States and more than a million globally. The church does not support same-sex relationships, which it sees as illegitimate.

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