Gay student stripped of university student senate seat

Injustice or a matter of procedure?? Lezgetreal.com is reporting that a lesbian student at Valparaiso University was stripped of her senate seat in the student government. The seat was apparently set aside for minority students, and the bylaws do not include LGBT in the definition of minority. Students are saying that the admin used this technicality to minimize LGBT representation on the campus.

In February, Tia Kolasa, an openly gay undergraduate at Northern Indiana’s Valparaiso University, was overwhelming elected by her classmates to fill a student senate seat designated for minority students. Kolasa sought to fill that seat so she could represent the gay community on campus.

Sources at the school say Kolasa is well liked and popular with her peers on the senate. They also say she was doing “a great job” as a senator, that she was bringing a new awareness of LGBT issues to non gay students and had instilled a sense of pride in the members of Valparaiso University LGBT student community.

But a few weeks after Kolasa assumed her new responsibilities as a student senator, questions were raised by some students and school administrators if being gay should be considered a minority and soon after Valparaiso University officials informed the counsel that sexual orientation did not qualifying under the student senate’s bylaws or under school policies for minority status and directed that Kolasa be removed from her seat.

In issuing his ruling, President Mark Heckler said the issue of unseating Kolasa was entirely a matter of procedure. Heckler also said the ground rules were established from the beginning, and that changing those rules in midstream to seat someone was the reason for Kolasa was removed.

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