Loma Linda University Shifted Policies on LGBT Students and Faculty After 2008, Spectrum Article Reports

Loma Linda University (LLU), a Seventh-day Adventist institution owned by the General Conference, changed its attitudes and regulations toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other LGBT students, faculty and staff in the years after 2008, and especially from 2014. The account comes from a researcher who interviewed more than 30 administrators, faculty, and past and present students between December 2019 and mid-2020, and who reviewed changes to university policies and handbooks. Those interviewed were promised anonymity, so the account does not attribute individual statements to them.

The article describes LLU as having long been regarded as especially unwelcoming to gay and lesbian students and faculty. As a General Conference-owned school, it followed denominational guidelines closely, and its policies reflected traditional church and societal positions. The 1988 sexual standards statement, first printed in the Faculty Handbook, listed prohibited behaviors. The 1998 Student Handbook did not include sexual orientation or gender identity among protected categories, and it claimed exemptions from Title IX provisions that conflicted “with church teachings.” Its sexual standards policy forbade any non-heterosexual expression. According to the article, a gay applicant who disclosed orientation could be refused admission, and a same-sex couple living together could be expelled or fired.

In September 2000, LLU President B. Lyn Behrens told a local newspaper that faculty were fired and students expelled if they were caught or suspected of breaking rules against homosexual conduct, and that student records noted dismissal for immorality. After the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) warned the administration that such policies could violate a new state anti-discrimination law effective January 2001, and then published a follow-up article in February 2001, the university reportedly agreed to protect LGBT faculty and students who did not overtly practice homosexuality and to help others relocate. The article says more than 20 people had come forward through an ACLU notice and were willing to bring charges and testify. In 2002, Vice President for Diversity Leslie Pollard, speaking to the Adventist Review, said the university applied “one standard applicable to both hetero- and homosexual persons: celibacy before marriage; monogamy within marriage.” The author argues that the standard’s intent was discriminatory, since same-sex marriage was not then legal anywhere in the United States.

Over the following years, the article reports, LLU made intermittent changes. A 1994 graduate school statement said enrollment “is not conditioned on their political or sexual orientation,” which the article links to a concern raised during a psychology program reaccreditation visit. In 2008, after court decisions and the Proposition 8 campaign in California, university legal counsel Kent Hansen asked President Richard Hart to form a committee. The committee’s “three-point standard,” which the board accepted, takes into account Adventist Church teachings, secular law, and “the compassion that Jesus taught.” The article notes that these principles remain in effect and that they gave the university more flexibility in relation to the official church position.

The article says the School of Medicine’s 2013 orientation document, “Principles Regarding Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity,” was the first LLU policy to mention gender identity. It stated that discrimination or harassment based on sexual orientation or gender identity “will not be tolerated” and that the university does not promote “conversion” or “reparative therapies.” In the 2014–2015 Student Handbook, the Title IX section extended protections to sexual orientation and gender identity, though the separate nondiscrimination statement did not reflect this until about two years later. The article also reports that General Conference president Ted Wilson asked Hart to stop in vitro fertilization services for LGBT people after a complaint, and that Hart replied the service was a legitimate medical activity. The author writes that the church’s reduced financial contribution and the smaller share of board members who are denominational officers have limited its leverage over the university.

The article also describes how questions about transgender students became more prominent, particularly around single-sex dormitories and bathrooms. When administrators raised these questions, the university said bathrooms were designed to protect privacy. The article concludes that sexuality is rarely discussed in depth in Adventist churches, which it says has contributed to confusion and made these questions harder to resolve. Luke 12:48 applies to the university’s later accountability for its policies once it had accepted responsibility for the people it served.

Source: Read the original report