In response to Rolando Garcia’s front page article on March 26:
I am writing in response to the story that appeared on the front page of The Battalion titled “Gay tolerance brings controversy to faculty.”
Although I applaud you for writing an article about the very important issue of diversity on this campus, many of the quotes in the article attributed to my name are inaccurate and I want to take a moment to clarify what you have written.
In the brief phone interview I had with Mr. Garcia on March 17 I did not say that I found Crouse’s letter “rather pompous and arrogant.” I did say that there had been charges and countercharges in regard to a newly proposed college-wide statement on diversity and, in fact, I had been called pompous. Further, I said that people on all points of the spectrum of acceptance of GLBT individuals felt they were being attacked. Finally, I said that we must get beyond personal attacks and move toward collegial conversations. These conversations are currently happening in our college.
A memo from me is quoted as saying, “I generally consider distinctions that call us to love the sinner while hating the sin to be empty, rhetorical gestures at best and covers for persecution at worst.” The article fails to mention that in the next sentence I say that I am also cognizant of the great good accomplished by many denominations of many different religions.
This very same memo speaks of the immense trust and respect that I have for my colleagues whose signatures appear at the bottom of the letter opposing the wording of the proposed diversity statement for the college (which, by the way, passed unanimously yesterday). I have known most of these signers for almost seven years and have complete trust in their dedication to fairness.
In another letter to the faculty in the College of Education and Human Development, I wrote, “In our culture, the introduction of religious perspectives always give rise to deeply felt responses. The right, however, to hold those beliefs and be open about them must be protected as must the right to be who you are, in terms of sexual orientation, be protected.”
The Battalion article also states that I “instituted a new policy that states the college ‘celebrates and cherishes GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered) people.'” This is not a new policy; it is an operating policy that has been upheld by the college’s administration, at least since 1996 when I arrived at Texas A&M. In sharing this operational policy, it is not my intent to confront any existing TAMU System policy or to quell anyone’s thoughts or opinions. Rather, my intent is to encourage enlightened conversation from which our community can grow together and learn from one another.
I am quoted correctly once in the article. I did, in fact, say that I use sacred texts to guide my personal life and not to judge others. This is true. I try my best not to judge others. I seek to understand and learn from others — those who are like me, but more importantly, those who are very different from me.
Jane Close Conoley
Dean and Professor
College of Education and Human Development