
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, February 17, 1991                   TAG: 9102180352
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: C/3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN T. CASTEEN III
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AT UVA, ANTI-BIAS VS. FREE SPEECH

Editor's note: The president of the University of Virginia last week lifted a Law School ban on recruiting visits next year by prospective employers, including the military, who discriminate against homosexuals. Here is his statement, slightly edited, explaining his action.

AT MY request, the University of Virginia School of Law is suspending a revision of its placement policy. Proposed in response to accreditation requirements, the revision would have denied employers that discriminate on various bases (including sexual orientation) use of the facilities of the law school.

These considerations have led me to intervene in this matter:

1. It is in the public interest for the university to encourage its students to consider the broadest possible range of employers. I am not persuaded that an accrediting body, such as the Association of American Law Schools, can legitimately determine who interviews on the grounds.

2. The university community has a tradition of internal debate prior to policy actions of this kind. The proposed revision has large implications for the entire university. Further (and substantive) faculty and administrative deliberations are necessary before we consider the steps proposed for the law school.

Members of the law faculty and others in the university feel strongly about these issues, and I respect their positions. At the same time, all of us recognize that it is in the nature of the university to include, not to exclude; to foster debate, not to stifle it; and to pursue rational and reasonable solutions.

The university remains firmly committed to principles of non-discrimination. These principles include my Jan. 28 statement against discrimination on the bases of citizenship and sexual orientation. Discrimination is antithetical to the university's obligation to all the people.

I have intervened because the accreditation requirement seems at odds with the concepts of free association and free expression that thrive in the university generally and in the law school.

by CNB