Board of Regents sends message

BIG GAY NEWS today from the student papers, and I must say that it's certainly a welcome change from the Mark Foley scandal (although I would recommend checking out Jon Stewart's take on the whole situation from last week, in case you missed it).

UW system publicly opposes gay marriage ban (Daily Cardinal)

One would hope that this coverage of the Board's position on this topic will sway a few votes as voters realize the depressing vagueness of the amendment's infamous second sentence. UW has lost some outstanding instructors due to its position as the only Big 10 school that does not offer domestic partnership benefits, and this amendment would shut the door on the possibility of that ever happening.

This issue has a lot to do with an article that was published today on the State Journal's Opinion page, on the sad state of diversity on campus. Although the article focused mainly on racial diversity, I think that this is an issue that concerns all of us. Here was a particularly alarming quotation:

"In the meantime, the university languishes at the bottom of the Big 10 in diversity. Several major corporations have stopped recruiting here due to a lack of diversity among our students. Those corporations have also declared that UW-Madison's white students are so deprived of experiences with people of color that they are poorly prepared to assist with global sales initiatives."

I would argue that students on a predominately heterosexual campus and suffer similarly from a lack of contact with gay, lesbian, bisexual, and/or transgendered students and faculty. If this ban passes, it could not only deter instructors from contributing to our institution, but we would likely lose incoming students who would prefer to pursue their education in a more socially-accepting state.