Dr. Wright Lassiter
After calls and letters from individuals and encouragement from Resource Center Dallas, Dallas County Community College District has apparently decided to put an amendment to its nondiscrimination policy on the January agenda. But in an email, DCCCD President Wright Lassiter said as far as the board is concerned, nondiscrimination is already policy.
The DCCCD board is considering adding gender identity and expression to its official written policy. Sexual orientation is already included.
RCD Communications and Advocacy Manager Rafael McDonnell sent Lassiter a letter that pointed out three places in the community college’s policies where wording would need to change to make all nondiscrimination wording parallel. Erin Roberts, a member of RCD’s transgender group GEAR, wrote to Lassiter that she has taken several courses at different DCCCD campuses.
While DCCCD legal counsel Robert J. Young originally said the college district would be covered under the city’s nondiscrimination policy that includes gender identity, Roberts pointed out the “government entity exemption” written into the ordinance.
“As a former white male who lived unknowingly in a world of white male privilege even though I came from very humble origins, my eyes have been opened to many different human right struggles directly because of my personal experience with discrimination on the basis that I am transgender,” Roberts wrote. “I am not less capable than before I came out. I am not less experienced. I do have much less opportunity to participate in the workforce. I am not hideous, outlandish, distracting, attention-seeking or disrespectful, but i am different. I am not able or willing to hide. The world will never get better for any of us that may be different in some way if we hide or accept that some how our differences not based on our performance, but based on perceptions of us should be allowed to justify preventing us from participating fully and contributing based on our abilities and talents to the work force and society at large.”
Lassiter replied to both Roberts and McDonnell that non-discrimination based on gender identity is the policy at the trustee level.
“I wanted you to know that I am encouraging openness and fairness in our policy language,” he wrote. “I have asked the board to take the time to give this full consideration and be in a position to make their position a matter of policy at the January board meeting. The messages that are being received are ‘heard.’ Throughout my tenure in the district I have endeavored to be as inclusive as possible — I hope this little message is helpful to you and others.”
In a message to McDonnell later in the week, Lassiter said he wouldn’t be able to get the matter on the December agenda but hoped to have it added to the January meeting.
