In a unanimous vote, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University trustees have voted to expand the school’s non-discrimination policies to include sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s the last public university in Florida to do so.
FAMU officials began discussing the policy change in 2012 with the creation of an LGBT “fact-finding committee.” But, the committee’s recommendations didn’t find their way to the Board of Trustees until this past Thursday, when the board voted unanimously to include lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals in the university’s existing non-discrimination statutes. In a phone interview Friday Dr. William Hudson, Vice President for Student Affairs, said even though the committee succeeded in efforts to reform some university policies, there was still more work to be done.
“This committee will not be disbanded. This committee will still meet. We still have a lot of work to do. And so, we will move this committee forward with some charges and some specific goals that we’re going to set together for them to accomplish now that we have got this amendment to the anti-discrimination policy,” Hudson avowed.
Hudson didn’t cite specific issues that the committee would be addressing but said it would meet again next week. FAMU’s policy change follows similar changes at Florida State University and Florida Atlantic University, who amended their anti-discrimination rules in 2010 and 2011, respectively.