Campus Pride, the leading national nonprofit for LGBT and ally college students, is disappointed in the decision by administration at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in its failure to meet the safety needs of its LGBT student population by creating a gender neutral housing option, as reported by the university's student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, last week. Colleges and universities first priority is the safety and learning of its students, not the stakeholders. In 2010, Campus Pride released the most comprehensive national study to date titled "The State of Higher Education for LGBT People." This national study reported that nearly a quarter of LGB people on campus encounter harassment. This percentage is even more alarming for transgender students and LGB students of color.

Campus Pride supports the UNC LGBT student community and asks for this proposal to be reconsidered within the year -- because it is the right thing to do for LGBT student safety and all students on campus. Please go online and view nationally what other leading LGBT-friendly colleges are doing to create safe learning environments with our Campus Pride LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index (www.CampusPrideIndex.org). The Index is the premiere national benchmarking tool to help colleges become more LGBT-friendly in their policies, programs and practices. UNC Chapel Hill has not participated in the Index, which is free. Campus Pride encourages UNC to take the national research assessment tool to better understand the ways to create safer, more welcoming LGBT-friendly campus climates.

Campus Pride applauds the position taken by the student editorial board of The Daily Tar Heel and thanks them for their outspokenness on behalf of LGBT students at their university.