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2018-2022

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Passing the Torch: ASSP Picks Up the Fight, Begins Relationship With the Board of Trustees

It was in 2018 when LGBTQ+ issues made their way back into the attention of SPU’s upper administration—and the Board of Trustees. Student Nathan Samayo ran for ASSP president for the 2018-2019 academic year, seeking to be a bridge between marginalized groups on campus and administration. He would serve as ASSP President from 2018 to 2020. Nathan Samayo very much led the student attempts to remove the Statement on Human Sexuality from the Student Handbook. The Statement on Human Sexuality was developed in the early 1990s due to the conflict over Mary Fry and Michael Roe’s course on human sexuality, and was stitched into the Student Handbook to inform residential living policies and lifestyle expectations. Here is the full Statement on Human Sexuality as it exists on SPU’s website and as it existed in the Student Handbook when Samayo began his term:

“Human beings are created in the image of God, male and female. The explicit relational dimension of human beings and the inherent differentiation of gender are foundational to our understanding of creation itself. Our discussions and considerations of human sexuality, therefore, take place within the context of these assumptions. Human sexuality is both a relational truth and it is gender differentiated…In particular, we affirm the institutions of marriage and family as central to the purposes of God. We believe it is in the context of the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman that the full expression of sexuality is to be experienced and celebrated and that such a commitment is part of God’s plan for human flourishing. Within the teaching of our religious tradition, we affirm that sexual experience is intended between a man and a woman. We believe this is the ancient and historic teaching of Christian scriptures and tradition, including the teaching of Seattle Pacific’s founding denomination, the Free Methodist Church…” (SPU Statement on Human Sexuality)

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Those who oppose SPU's Statement on Human Sexuality view it as operating on a narrow and inaccurate understanding of biological sex, gender, and sexual relationships. The Statement affirms the existence of only two genders (man and woman) and directly correlates gender with a limited understanding of biological sex rather than recognizing that gender is socially constructed and that there are many variations in biological sex. Many also take issue with the Statement's limiting of sex to the confines of marriage. For years, the Statement was a part of SPU’s Student Handbook, and students were expected to sign their agreement to it and live within its boundaries. Samayo stated early in his run that he would be prioritizing removing the statement. In the fall of 2018, Nathan Samayo and his ASSP leadership team created a petition for the removal of the Statement of Human Sexuality from the Student Handbook that received almost one thousand signatures from SPU students, alumni, faculty, and staff. They gave the petition to Dr. Sandra Mayo, the head of SPU’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the time, and Dr. Dan Martin, the President of SPU at the time. When Dr. Martin and Dr. Mayo went to give the petition to the Board of Trustees for their approval, the petition was shut down in the spring of 2019. In his interview, Nathan Samayo shared his thoughts on the situation:

“I personally believe that Dan Martin was about it. But it was the Board of Trustees that was not. So that's why they didn't go through. And it didn't surprise me that he quit his job right after this whole lawsuit came out. So I do have a feeling that he was about it. Obviously, a white man in leadership needs—has room to learn but like, I think he was about it, but it was the Board of Trustees that made it difficult for him to pass any kind of legislation that would support queer students or eliminate that harmful statement on human sexuality and hiring policy.”

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As a part of SPU’s Lifestyle Expectations in the Student Handbook, the Statement was not a benign, quiet regurgitation of Christian dogma that existed without directly impacting the human experience at SPU. The Statement deeply impacted campus life. Not only did it send a clear message to incoming freshmen that queerness was not welcomed at SPU, it also informed acts of discrimination. 

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Over the past three years, student leaders have started to tackle discrimination at the deeply-rooted institutional level and are taking more radical steps to dismantle SPU’s systems of oppression.

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In February of 2019, a trans student in the theatre department named Spencer Vigil auditioned for a male role in the spring musical. Vigil was told he needed to sign a statement that he was “knowingly breaking lifestyle expectations and was aware of a list of consequences that could be taken against [him] should the head of lifestyle expectations find out, [including] losing scholarships, not graduating on time, or being kicked out of the University altogether.” The Statement’s transphobic gendered language directly created a situation where a student was discriminated against due to his identity. While it is unclear whether the proposed “consequences” of Spencer’s auditioning as a trans man were actual possibilities, it is telling that the theatre department felt the need to protect themselves from university action. The Statement still exists. It informs the controversial hiring policies still in place for staff and faculty at SPU. Nathan Samayo’s time as President removed the language of  homosexuality from the Handbook, but did not eliminate the Statement from SPU’s policies entirely. 

 

2019 and Nathan Samayo’s leadership was a turning point for campus conversations about LGBTQ+ inclusion and rights. Before, the goal was gaining official recognition for Haven and creating a space for LGBTQ+ students to exist on campus. Over the past three years, student leaders have started to tackle discrimination at the deeply-rooted institutional level and are taking more radical steps to dismantle SPU’s systems of oppression.

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On Monday, January 11, 2021, adjunct nursing professor Jeaux Rinedahl sued Seattle Pacific University for allegedly discriminating against him in the hiring process. According to Rinedahl, his colleagues encouraged him to apply for an open full time nursing teaching position, but after he went through the interview process, the Assistant Dean of the School of Health Sciences told him he could not be a full time faculty member because he was married to a man. SPU claimed they were allowed to discriminate in the hiring process based on a Supreme Court exception made for ministers of religious institutions. 

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That same week, on the 15th of January, a group of students gathered in front of Ashton Hall to publicly “come out” and show their support for Rinedahl while protesting SPU’s discriminatory hiring policies. Student leaders distributed QR codes with the contact information of each member of the Board of Trustees, instructing attendees to contact them and demonstrate the campus’ dissatisfaction with the Board’s continued attempts to delay or block policy change.

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On February 9, 2021, Student Senate made an official statement to the Board of Trustees repeating the findings of the 2018-2019 ASSP document. Two days later, SPU’s staff and faculty sent a letter of lament to the Board of Trustees. The letter included lamentations of the school’s discriminatory actions and a list of action items for the Board of Trustees—as well as over eleven pages of signatures from staff and faculty.

On February 24, 2021, SPU’s Theology Student Union sent their own testimonies to the Board of Trustees, professing their support of the LGBTQ+ community and explaining that the Board’s decisions did not align with SPU’s theology.

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On March 15, 2021, the Board of Trustees held an executive meeting to hear three different campus perspectives—student, staff, and faculty—on whether or not they should remove the Statement on Human Sexuality. Nathan Samayo's successor for ASSP president, was given three weeks to prepare his presentation on the student perspective:

“I made sure to include the voices of students who have been directly affected by this. And I said, we sent out a Google Forms thing where we gave people the chance to anonymously submit their story, we got so many responses. And I tried my best to summarize a good amount. But at the end of the day, it was only like a 15 minute presentation….it shouldn't have been a persuasive presentation and I felt like that's what I was cornered into. If I'm going to be very candid, it felt gross, because it was like, how can I be personal? How can I try to persuade people to care about human rights? That doesn't seem like the type of thing that should require any type of persuasion, this should have just been me just stepping up and saying ‘this is the vibe of the campus’, which I mean, at its core it was, but like, it did seem like I was cornered into making a sales pitch to a group of old predominantly white men with power….And I kid you not like…these three presentations, which I might add, the other two presenters of both the faculty and staff did such a great job outlining what the faculty and the staff were feeling…And at the end, there was so many chances and opportunities for there to be engagement at a face-to-face level. There were so many chances for them to ask questions. And yet, like the only questions that were asked, were asked by the same person. And they were clarifying questions instead of deeper-rooted questions about what this can mean with the university or like, their position on like, same sex marriage or same sex relationships…There was zero dialogue and conversation. And I think at the crux of it, what made people even more frustrated is the fact that they have such a clever inability to avoid any conflict or any uncomfortable conversation with their community. And when we fast forward to spring quarter when people are even more mad and more frustrated because we have a president that resigns, we have a board that's unable to make a decision, and when they make their decision is so like, misinformed and so grossly put together that, like, they had all the opportunity to have this dialogue with us at this meeting and they failed to do so like there was zero, like effort put. So it was almost like they had made their decision prior to hearing these presentations. And that's what bugged me the most about it was that."

 

SPU was also named in REAP’s Title IX case against religious institutions.

On March 30, 2021, SPU President Dan Martin resigned “after repeated efforts to achieve change” at SPU. Martin had been a crucial administrative ally for SPU’s queer community, as he was the leader who finally approved Haven to be an official ASSP club. His departure struck a blow, and the effects would only fully be felt later.

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"There was zero dialogue and conversation. . . [the board] have such a clever inability to avoid any conflict or any uncomfortable conversation with their community." -2020-2021 ASSP president

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On April 12, 2021, the Board of Trustees announced that they would maintain the discriminatory hiring policies. In response, ASSP and other student groups gave the Board of Trustees until May 1st, national Decision Day for colleges, to remove the Statement on Human Sexuality. Otherwise, they declared their intentions to move forward with a list of demands, including withholding alumni donations.

 

On April 19th, before the Board was to hold an emergency meeting and make their final decision on the hiring policy, student leaders organized a candlelight vigil in Tiffany Loop to hold space for the community’s grief, anger, and sadness. A few days later, they organized a protest in Tiffany Loop. One of the organizers, student Reena Sidhu, explained the different intentions for each event to the Falcon: 

“The vigil was very much to sit in lament and sit in community and grieve and process any emotions you’re feeling. Here we’re angry and we’re here to call the Board of Trustees. Last week we showed them our emotions and became transparent so they got to see how we’re feeling. Here, we are here to remind you we are a little pesky bug you cannot get rid of.”

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Students, staff, and faculty expressed their shared desire to eliminate the discriminatory Statement on Human Sexuality, claiming it was unproductive, outdated, discriminatory, and did not reflect the nature of the people who made up Seattle Pacific University. 

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Also on April 19th, ninety-percent of SPU's faculty took a vote of no confidence in the Board of Trustees. The vote detailed four specific faculty grievances with the Board: 1) lack of engagement with the campus; 2) failure to actually serve their community, as the decision to maintain the hiring policy contradicted the majority view on campus; 3) the apparent dismissal of campus concerns over the harmful effects of discriminatory policies; 4) the willful ignorance of the financial, social, and legal consequences of maintaining discriminatory hiring policies. Of the faculty members, seventy-two percent voted “no confidence” in the Board of Trustees, meaning that they opposed the decision to maintain the policy and felt the Board was not representing the interests of the campus. ASSP Senate sent another letter to the Board of Trustees, expressing their disappointment with the decision to maintain the hiring policy:

“[W]e are doing our students a disservice by placing only those who fit with a narrow definition of Christianity in positions of authority. We shut down the conversation before it starts by not allowing people of varying identities and backgrounds into the community, and it steals the opportunity to learn from and share in imaginative engagement with those who are different. If we are to continue to be a university and community founded on Christ’s example of radical inclusion and boundless love, recognizing the beauty and Imago Dei reflected within human diversity, then we cannot maintain policies that marginalize our LGBTQ+ siblings in Christ.” 

"If we are to continue to be to be a. . . community founded on Christ's example of radical inclusion and boundless love...then we cannot maintain policies that marginalize our LGBTQ+ siblings in Christ"

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Ultimately, the Board of Trustees affirmed their decision not to remove the discriminatory hiring policy. In response, on May 6, 2021, the Faculty Senate organized a “Task Force” to continue the conversation with the Board and try to reach a mutual understanding. The Task Force pledged to meet over the summer break, and the 2020-2021 academic year closed with tensions high and many questions unanswered.

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On September 13th, 2021, the first day of classes for the 2021-2022 school year, an anonymous group of students had covered the campus in miniature pride flags, signs, banners, and chalk messages protesting the Board’s decision and affirming queer existence at SPU and within Christianity. 

 

A few weeks later, on October 1st, 2021, ASSP posted a video on their Instagram page inviting Interim President Pete Menjares to an open forum on November 1st. They also posted a letter, signed by each core team member—President Laur Lugos, Vice President Ciarra Choe, VP of Ministries Chloe Guillot, and VP of Intercultural Affairs Reena Sidhu—detailing student frustrations with the Board’s decisions and failure to connect with the campus. The intention of the open forum was to give President Menjares and student leaders the opportunity to be transparent with each other. The outcry against the board would continue. Later in that same month, on National Coming Out Day, an anonymous group of student leaders posted “coming out” signs around campus. Each sign was titled “Dear Dr.  Menjares, I’m Coming Out…” and contained personal messages from individual anonymous students about their own experiences being queer at SPU and the resounding devastation of the Board’s decision the previous spring quarter. 

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The state of SPU would receive more attention from outside the school as well. On October 25th, 2021, LGBTQ+ rights organization Campus Pride published their “Absolute Worst Campuses for LGBTQ+ Youth” list, a list of 180 colleges and universities with discriminatory policies, a Title IX exemption, or a “past history and track record of anti-LGBTQ actions, programs, and practices.” Within Seattle, King County Court ruled later, on December 17th, that SPU could not “discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation when hiring in the nursing department.”

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On November 1st, 2021, ASSP hosted “The Conversation Is Now”, the open forum with Interim President Pete Menjares. Organizers recited testimonies from students, staff, and alumni, and Menjares fielded questions students had submitted prior to the event. Testimonies from community members after the event ranged from expressions of despair and disappointment to declarations of love:

“I love SPU, not for the institutional hatred that I feel for my and my peers’ identity and passions for the sake of ‘comfortableness’. No, I love SPU in spite of it being a place with university leaders who say I don’t matter, because I love the actual people and community here at SPU.” —Anonymous Student 

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On November 8, 2021 ASSP worked with the graduate psychology school to develop a “Voices of Campus Survey”, a questionnaire that asked participants to disclose their opinions on policies such as the Statement on Human Sexuality, the anti-gay language in the hiring policy, and other lifestyle expectations of potential staff and faculty.

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"I love SPU in spite of it being a place with university leaders who say I don’t matter, because I love the actual people and community here at SPU.”

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The new year of 2022 would bring fresh approaches to the LGBTQIA+ issues on campus. On January 11, 2022, SPU announced the formation of an LGBTQIA+ Workgroup composed of senior faculty, Board members, staff members, and Interim President Pete Menjares. The goal of the Workgroup was to fully investigate all options and present their best advised course of action to the Board of Trustees regarding the Statement on Human Sexuality and the hiring policy. The projected deadline for the Workgroup’s decision was April 15th, but the deadline was pushed back. On April 22, 2022, the LGBTQ+ Workgroup privately presented their findings and recommendations to the Board of Trustees. Later, their findings would be made public to the whole SPU community. 

 

On May 2, 2022, Rinedahl agreed to settle his case out of court. This did not lessen the energy on campus, and on May 5, the Free Methodist Church made a devastating announcement. They announced that any university affiliated with the FMC that changed their hiring policies to be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ potential staff and faculty would be disaffiliated. While it may never be possible to know for sure, members of the Workgroup and the SPU community highly suspected that two of the Board members associated with the Free Methodist Church had broken the confidentiality agreement of the Workgroup and influenced the FMC Board to make their decision. 

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Later that month, on the 12th of May, the LGBTQIA+ Workgroup announced to the SPU community the five possible courses of action available to the Board of Trustees. Options included making small linguistic changes to the Statement, maintaining it with no change, and removing it all together. The Workgroup specifically recommended what they called the “Third Way” option, which had three variations:

“Each ‘third-way’ variation suggests that SPU change its Employee Lifestyle Expectations to eliminate the prohibition of ‘same-sex sexual activity’ but maintain that sexuality activity should be expressed within the loving and committed bounds of a marriage covenant. In addition, each variation expressed a desire to maintain an affiliation with our founding denomination, the Free Methodist Church. The ‘third-way’ variations differ concerning the Statement on Human Sexuality (SoHS): one variation retains the statement as an expression of our denominational heritage, the second variation eliminates the SoHS, and the third variation revises the SoHS to acknowledge different Christian perspectives on human sexuality.”

It is clear that the official recommendation of the Workgroup was to remove the homophobic standards in the current hiring policy. The intention was never to break SPU from Christianity, or even from the Free Methodist Church.

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On May 17th, 2022, student leaders organized a protest in Tiffany Loop to inspire community engagement and show the Board of Trustees that their decision mattered to hundreds of students, staff, faculty, and alumni. 

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“I think it’s super funny how the university wants to hold onto these traditions, but the current student body, including me, one of the direct descendants of the founders of the university, do not give a shit about the current policies, and we demand that the statement gets stripped out and that we disaffiliate from the Free Methodist Church for being homophobic and not understanding the reality of our modern world.” —Emma Wick

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“The point of this protest practically is, one – to celebrate joy for all queer students, staff, and faculty on this campus because we don’t get to have a lot of spaces together. Another reason is the Board of Trustees meeting is at the end of this week, and we would like to just showcase that the community really does care.” —Reena Sidhu, ASSP VPIA

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On May 19th, 2022, the Board of Trustees met in Upper Gwinn to talk through their final decision on the discriminatory hiring policy. Student protesters gathered on the steps outside Gwinn Commons with flags, signs, noisemakers, and chants. One of the organizers, Leah Duff, described the protest’s intentions: “Our ask is for disaffiliation with the Free Methodist Church since they have threatened to disaffiliate if we change the homophobic hiring policies at SPU and the statement on human sexuality.”

 

A few days later on the 23rd, the Board of Trustees declared that they had finally, definitively, decided against changing the hiring policy:

“The Board acknowledges that there is disagreement among faithful Christians on the topic of sexuality and identity. However, the decision means SPU’s employee conduct expectations continue to reflect a traditional view on biblical marriage and sexuality, as an expression of long-held church teaching and interpretation of scripture. While the board has landed on a decision that reflects a prayerful and sincere commitment to the wellbeing of SPU’s identity as an orthodox, evangelical, Wesleyan, and ecumenical institution of faith and learning, there is also sober acknowledgement of how this news will be received. The board acknowledges that there is disagreement among faithful Christians on the topic of sexuality and identity.” 

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“We’re here, we’re not leaving, you can’t get rid of us that easily, try as you might.’”

Overnight, student leaders developed a plan for an intensive protest of the Board’s decision. On May 24th, 2022, protestors rallied outside Demaray Hall, expressing their anger at the Board’s dismissive decision and declaring their intentions to continue the fight. Protestors filed into Demaray Hall and settled on the second floor, outside the administrative offices, and began a sit-in that would last for over a month. Leah Duff told the Falcon that “The thought behind the sit-in is that we’re tired of them trying to just get things to quietly go away. “We’re here to call attention to ourselves, we’re here to really say, like ‘we’re here, we’re not leaving, you can’t get rid of us that easily, try as you might.’”

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On May 26th, 2022, a few members of the Board of Trustees attended a Town Hall Meeting and answered questions submitted by SPU’s students, staff, and faculty about their decision to maintain the hiring policy.

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“The town hall meeting was complete bullshit. As some of the faculty here were saying, they didn’t even deflect questions, they straight up lied and just didn’t answer anything. Like it was a complete non-answer. They obviously didn’t add anything to the conversation besides making it worse. They immediately made it more confusing and a lot of the questions that we had proposed to them were really yes or no answers, and they didn’t say yes or no for anything, except for one question that did not ask for a yes or no answer, which just shows how much they aren’t listening in the first place.” —Sarah Garvin, student

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“I felt like they did not answer the questions sufficiently, and I think that there needs to be a space for the community to just answer questions and be able to react and respond because I think what we’re lacking here is like the voice to be able to say, like, ‘no, that’s not right. I don’t think the board really gave concrete examples and I think that’s what everyone is frustrated about…“They need a process in which they’re held accountable. We need a voice in this decision making. It can’t just be them as this like, overhead. I think we need a part in elections for board members. I don’t think this should be a self-sustaining thing where board members elect other board members, because as we’ve seen, there’s been some that have resigned and there’s a lack of diversity of perspective. I think we’re losing some of that.”” —Carlee Curly, staff

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“It definitely feels like they were divorced from many of the perspectives that were represented among faculty, staff, students and alumni. It feels that they are not speaking for the community and that is what is the most painful thing for the community that then has to live with the fallout of these decisions.” —Emily Huff, faculty

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The sit-in would continue, supported entirely by students, faculty, community members, and alumni, and it would receive extensive attention through social media. Eventually, a deadline of July 1 was set in place by sit-in leaders. If the board did not make a clear change by that deadline, legal action would be pursued. The Board did not change. They wrote a letter to the leaders of the sit in expressing appreciation for their efforts, but remaining set on their stance. 

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Fundraising efforts would ensue for the rest of the summer. Finally, on September 12th, 2022, a group of students, staff, and faculty officially filed their lawsuit against the Board of Trustees for breach of fiduciary duty.

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