In May, the University of Massachusetts (UMass) system will reportedly host several graduation ceremonies exclusively for LGBT-identifying students.
On May 8, UMass Boston is putting on an LGBT “Lavender Graduation” organized by the school’s Queer Student Center. According to Campus Reform, last year’s Lavender Graduation included “drag performances from local Drag Queens.”
Likewise, UMass Dartmouth will host its own Lavender Graduation on May 1, and UMass Amherst’s Bromery Center for the Arts is hosting its 26th annual “Rainbow Graduation” on May 9.
UMass Amherst’s website states that graduating students “will receive a certificate, a rainbow tassel, and a copy of the anthology Surviving Transphobia, which features an article by the keynote speaker.” The keynote speaker is Dru Levasseur, “a UMass alum who is the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association and the former National Director of the Transgender Rights Project for Lambda Legal.”
According to Campus Reform:
“Lavender Graduations are a common trend on campuses. Earlier this month, Campus Reform reported that Harvard University will provide ‘‘affinity celebrations’ for graduating students broken down by race, religion, and other identity groups,’ including a 'Lavender Celebration.' Rutgers University will be hosting a ‘Rainbow Graduation’ as well as an ‘Undocu Graduation’ for illegal immigrants.”
On its website, UMass Boston’s Queer Student Center insists that its mission is to “work towards a more inclusive and affirming campus for all.” But how is separating LGBT-identifying students from the rest of the student body “inclusive?”
Virtually all LGBT student centers, which are funded by student tuition dollars and taxpayers, claim to be “inclusive.” Yet they exist to highlight the various sexual “identities” of students, purposely othering them from the rest of the student body.
Indeed, as the right is lobbed attacks that they are “racist” and “sexist,” it is actually the left who delights in rewarding, punishing, and, in the case of the “lavender” graduations, segregating individuals based on their immutable qualities.
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