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by Jonathan Kipp
Photos by Marty Davis
*
group of 35 University of Port
land students and their support
ers recognized the Rev. Martin
Luther King Jr.'s birthday Jan. 15
by staging a 30-minute silent
protest and then presenting a list of demands
to administrators. Although the students
lauded the concepts of equality, acceptance
and understanding— so often part of King’s
birthday celebration— they vocalized their
concern about the university’s “lack of
acknowledgment and acceptance of diversity
issues on campus.”
A dozen university administrators and
staff members stood nearby during the
event. One professor told the students that
their public demonstration about universi
ty issues was the first in the history of the
institution.
The university, ranked by U.S. News &
World Report as one of the top 10 universities
in the West, has 2,600 students.
Activist Kari Kruse said it was the first
time students on campus publicly acknowl
edged the national holiday in a meaningful
way. The university holds a reading every
year in one of the campus buildings to com
memorate King’s birthday but does not offi
cially recognize the holiday; scheduled classes
are held as usual.
Friends United to Educate Lives, or FUEL,
sponsored the protest. The organization, found
ed by Kruse and fellow student Marguax Hunter
in 1999, is not recognized by the institution as
an official group.
The women started FUEL after experienc
ing more than a year of harassment in the uni
versity’s dorms. They had nowhere to turn for
m
Toward
the end of
the demonstration,
university
administrators
come together
in solidarity with
concerned students
as Kari Kruse
presents FL'EL’s
list of demands
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Ìi-iiÌS
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support during that time because the universi
ty does not provide specific services for gay
and lesbian students on campus; part of the
organization’s mission is to reach out to sexual
minority students.
Kruse said she didn’t even attempt to get offi
cial recognition when starting FUEL because
she was so certain the group would be denied.
The Catholic university, like many others across
the country, doesn’t allow gay-related student
organizations on campus.
In 1994, a student group that was focused
Campus activist
Kari Kruse
meets the press
during the
protest Jan. 1 5
on sexual minority issues was denied club sta
tus, according to Kruse. The university
revised its student handbook in 1995 to
reflect its devotion to its values, she said. The
revision stated, “The university encourages
development and registration of a wide vari
ety of student groups but reserves the right to
deny recognition to any group whose purpos
es are judged to be incompatible with the uni
versity’s mission and its Catholic identity.”
University personnel told Kruse that even
if she left the words “gay and lesbian” out of
FUEL’s mission statement, the administration
would know the group’s intent. “I just didn’t
have the energy” to challenge the policy at
the time, she said. “We thought we could
get a lot more done without university
recognition.”
Despite the church’s opposition to homo
sexuality, many Catholic universities and col
leges in the United States sanction gay and
lesbian groups on their campuses. Kruse said
although University of Portland often looks
to University of Notre Dame as a model
Catholic institution, on the topic of gay and
lesbian issues Portland lags well behind the
notoriously conservative Notre Dame.
University of Portland is affiliated with
the Congregation of Holy Cross, the
Catholic order of priests and brothers also
affiliated with University of Notre Dame.
University of Notre Dame has taken
strides in recent years to look at the needs of
its sexual minority students. It now sponsors
the Standing Com
mittee on Gay and
Lesbian Needs, a
group staffed by stu
dents, professors and
the assistant vice
president of student
affairs.
But the universi
ty’s gay support group,
v
Outreach
Notre
Dame, doesn’t enjoy full recognition. It has lob
bied for inclusion and for “sexual orientation” to
he added to the university’s nondiscrimination
clause.
Despite strong recommendations from facul
ty and students alike, university officials haven’t
budged on these issues. However, Notre Dame
has sanctioned the Progressive Student A l
liance, which has a mission that includes gay
and lesbian rights.
Kruse suspects that any organization that
included the concerns of gays and lesbians in its
mission statement at University of Portland,
even if not an exclusively gay and lesbian group,
wouldn’t be granted support. She wonders how
University of Notre Dame— normally thought
to be the pinnacle of Catholic institutions—can
recognize gay and lesbian students while Uni
versity of Portland refuses.
M is s ili accomplished T
P
rotest organizers didn’t stop with recogniz
ing the slain civil rights leader, presenting a
list of demands to the university’s administra
tors. The students threatened to picket the cam
pus every week if the administration didn’t agree
to a meeting to discuss their complaints by
Jan. 19.
Toward the end of the demonstration,
Kruse asked the university administrators
standing nearby to sit among the protesters to
avoid an “us vs. them” atmosphere. The
administrators complied.