The university had asked the federal agency to dismiss sexual-harassment complaints by LGBTQ+ students, arguing that the claims infringed on the school’s religious tenets.
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Lori Fogleman, the university’s assistant vice president of media and public relations, lamented that Baylor’s religious exemption was being mischaracterized as a “broad-based exception to sexual harassment.” The expansion has exposed rifts between faith-based or conservative-led public schools and universities and LGBTQ+ people seeking protection.
The agency responded in July with a list of Title IX provisions that Baylor was exempt from on the grounds “that they are inconsistent with the University’s religious tenets.” Included in that list were regulations prohibiting sexual harassment. Penales also claimed the university’s policies on gay and lesbian relationships forced her to hide her sexual orientation as a queer woman, despite Baylor saying it values diversity and inclusion., which states that as a religiously controlled university, Baylor is exempt from complying with certain aspects of civil rights laws.
The education department’s letter doesn’t mean Penales’ complaint is immediately closed, but that’s a likely outcome, said Paul Carlos Southwick, director of the Religious Exemption Accountability Project, an advocacy group that filed a complaint on behalf of Penales. The civil rights office still needs to determine if Penales’ Title IX complaint should be dismissed, Southwick said.
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