News

Baylor Business School Dismisses Gay Alumnus from Board

Log Cabin Demands Baylor Re-instate Dismissed Alumnus

November 10, 2005

(Washington, DC) – "Baylor University's Business School is ignoring the policy of the vast majority of Fortune 500 companies who protect gay and lesbian workers," said Patrick Guerriero, President of Log Cabin Republicans. "The business school's decision to dismiss an alumnus from the school's advisory board because he's gay shows this institution is intolerant and out of touch with 21st century corporate America."

Tim Smith, a Log Cabin member and alumnus of Baylor University, has served for five years on the advisory board at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business. Smith, who is also a graduate of the Harvard Business School, has contributed more than $65,000 to Baylor and raised more than $60,000 to establish an academic scholarship endowment at Baylor.

In a statement, Dr. Terry Maness, dean of Baylor's business school, said he kicked Smith off the advisory board because of his "alternative lifestyle." The statement went on to say, "We must be sensitive to the position of our affiliated denomination, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which has, on previous occasions, stated that a homosexual lifestyle is incompatible with most Baptist interpretations of Scripture."

"Baylor should be leading the way on issues of basic fairness, not lagging woefully behind corporate America. Baylor's decision to openly discriminate, and to do so in the name of God, is shameful," said Tim Smith.

"Baylor University should immediately re-instate Tim Smith, and make it clear that sexual orientation plays no role in one's ability to serve on an alumni advisory board," said Guerriero. "How can Baylor claim to be preparing students for the realities of today's workplace, while at the same time employing a draconian policy that flies in the face of basic fairness and common decency?"