Cornell Student Canned From Leadership Of Christian Group After Coming Out

Upstate in Ithaca, a Cornell student was asked to step down from his leadership role in a campus Christian group after he told them he had accepted his homosexuality. The school's student newspaper suggests that a school-funded group should not be permitted to discriminate.

A campus Christian group that receives funding from the student activity fee is coming under scrutiny after a student was asked by advisors to step down from its leadership team when he told them that he had openly accepted his homosexuality. This incident is also raising questions about the effectiveness of campus mechanisms for addressing instances of discrimination. Chris Donohoe ’09, who joined the Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship when he was a freshman, said he had been openly struggling to reconcile his sexuality with his faith in Chi Alpha before he was asked to step down from the leadership team by Matt and Tracy Herman, the organization’s pastors. The Hermans, both members of Chi Alpha at Missouri State University before graduating in 2002, became Cornell Chi Alpha’s campus pastors in 2006.

The student filed a bias report with the school administration but was told no action could be taken because he was permitted to remain in the Christian group.