A bit of background: I live in the most culturally and ethnically diverse city in the world. However, the university I go to is comprised mostly of people from a very conservative background. This creates weird dynamics, and contributes to an atmosphere of intolerance toward groups those backgrounds habitually marginalize. There’s lots of homophobia. I’ve seen some racism and a fair amount of ableism*, but I’m not in a position to gauge the extent of those.

So for various reasons I showed up at the latest meeting of the committee that oversees the member of student government in charge of equity issues. Actually, I might as well say what the main reason was: the member in question was found to be a religiously homophobic asshole. So I presented my case, and lo and behold, the committee that oversees the homophobic asshole are also a bunch of religiously homophobic assholes.

That’s fucked up, right? It’s not just me? That the member of student government in charge of making sure that everyone gets a fair shake, as well as the committee that is supposed to make sure he’s doing his job properly are uniformly (or almost) homophobes?

* on a side note, the campus is reportedly quite accessible, so go them!
2 Comments ¤ Write your comment
Comment by Amy
November 14, 2007 @ 3:52 pm
Yeah - although no kudos to them. Ontario Building Code dictates all public building be completely barrier free. There's a barriers free add-on for almost every building by-law.
Comment by god
November 14, 2007 @ 9:53 pm
Yeah, I really have no idea whether UTSC goes above and beyond building codes with regards to accessibility, but part of what I've heard is that the services available on campus are quite good.

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