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Home Lifestyle Community Happenings Walkout to protest religious colleges’ discrimination of LGBTQ students set for Oct....
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Walkout to protest religious colleges’ discrimination of LGBTQ students set for Oct. 11

By
Haily Askerlund
-
October 4, 2022
0
Campus of Brigham Young University in the fall of 2020, photographed from the 4th floor of the Joseph F. Smith Building
A group of students known as the Black Menaces will organize a walkout on Oct. 11 to protest discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and other minorities on campuses of religious colleges and universities, including Brigham Young University, pictured. (Caroline Stickel, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Some students at Brigham Young University want students across Utah to join a nationwide college walkout.

The Black Menaces teamed up with the Religious Exemptions Accountability Project to organize the Oct. 11 walkout, called “Strike Out Homophobia,” to protest discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community and other minorities on campuses of religious colleges and universities.

“We are walking out to protest the end of legal discrimination by religious universities against queer individuals,” Sebastian Stuart-Johnson, content coordinator and editor for the Black Menaces, said in a Sept. 6 TikTok video.

BYU, founded by Brigham Young in 1875, continues to be sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and operated by the Church Educational System.

Students from across the country and state, including those at Salt Lake Community College, are invited to participate, as organizers hope to get more than 100 colleges and universities involved. The walkout begins at noon on Oct. 11, which is National Coming Out Day.

The goal, according to the event website, is to bring Title IX protections, which prohibit sex-based discrimination in any school that receives federal funding, to private religious schools exempt from the law.

Elisa Stone, a professor of English and Queer Studies and an advisor for the Queer Student Association at SLCC, believes the walkout could be effective in prompting change.

“Peaceful protest is always impactful,” she said. “Anything we can do to get the attention of those who are choosing to oppress and let them know that the oppressed are rising up, that’s when things begin to shift.”

Stone said, in her advisory role, she tries to ensure SLCC is a safe place for LGBTQ+ students and minorities.

“I fight every single day for people who are oppressed by organized religion in any way to claim their authentic identity, to be who they are, and to know that they are seen, loved, and way more than tolerated,” she said. “They deserve to be celebrated.”

Three years ago, on National Coming Out Day, SLCC opened its Gender & Sexuality Student Resource Center (GSSRC), which works to support SLCC’s LGBTQ+ students throughout their education. The GSSRC holds activities and support groups and provides resources to women, LGBTQ+ students and allies.

Nizhoni Tsosie, an English student at SLCC and related to several graduates of BYU, said that she would be interested in participating in the walkout.

The videos the Black Menaces make for TikTok, which have been going viral for months, paired with planning events like the walkout and participating in protests in Provo “takes guts,” Tsosie said.

“The Black Menaces have become notorious among my family,” she said. “I think they’re doing what all BIPOC students at BYU wish they could’ve done. It’s kind of amazing to see just a handful of students and a microphone make a whole school feel on edge.”

LGBTQ students cut purple ribbon
Salt Lake Community College held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for its Gender and Sexuality Student Resource Center on Oct. 11, 2019. From left to right: Joey Du Shane-Navanick, Thando Naluyima, Lupe Calderon, Jessica Castro, Shane Robertson. (Tamra Rachol)
  • TAGS
  • anti-discrimination
  • Black Menaces
  • Brigham Young University
  • Elisa Stone
  • LGBTQ
  • National Coming Out Day
  • national school walkout
  • Nizhoni Tsosie
  • queer students
  • Religious Exemptions Accountability Project
  • Salt Lake Community College
  • Sebastian Stuart-Johnson
  • Strike Out Homophobia
  • TikTok
  • Title IX
Haily Askerlund

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