ATLANTA ― Faculty members at Georgia’s largest university say they want discrimination against employees for gender identity banned more explicitly, on par with race, sex and religion.
Supporters acknowledge the change is a small one and doesn’t create new protection but said it speaks volumes about the University of Georgia community to current and potential students or faculty. It also brings the Athens campus, located about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta, in line with other universities.
“It says we do not discriminate, and we do not put up with discrimination,” business management professor Janine Aronson said.
A UGA spokeswoman said president Jere Morehead hasn’t reviewed the faculty council’s recommendation, which calls for making gender identity a specific protected category. Morehead must sign the recommendation for it to become effective.
Three other schools in the Georgia university system explicitly include gender identity in protections: Georgia Tech, Clayton State University and Georgia Perimeter College.
The recommendations at the Athens campus come amid other efforts in Georgia and the South—including a federal lawsuit against the state constitution’s ban on same-sex marriage—on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
Universities have long been a starting point for workplace equality fights. Efforts to provide full domestic partner benefits stalled at UGA in recent years but advocates may raise the issue again following fall elections.
