- A new development over alleged bias has unsettled the campus. But that’s only a tiny part of the story.
- Former students, as well as current and past university members, described several instances in which the school’s LGBTQ+ community felt silenced and unwelcome.
- The school’s leader, the Rev. Kenneth Sicard, while upholding Catholic gender teachings, is attempting to reconcile with a statement of support and group listening sessions.
A missing Pride symbol is the evidence. A same-sex union announcement left out of the alumni publication. Controversy over an LGBTQ+ graduation. A senior professor who, for decades, has kept anti-trans content posted on his office door.
This is the backdrop that, on an early April day, prompted some 50 Providence College students, staff, and alumni to hand-deliver letters of protest. Gathering into a meeting room, the group, comprised of students, employees, and alumni, urged the administration to more boldly support its LGBTQ+ community.
Determine is in a no-win situation, with conservatives who believe the president is pushing the envelope and more liberal voices who want the college to progress.
Determine stated in an interview with The Providence Journal that his goal is to emphasize “the fact that we are all created in the image and likeness of God.” That nobody here is unwelcome.
“It really bothers me to hear that some people don’t feel that way,” Sicard said. “And that’s what I’m trying to address, albeit poorly, I’m sure, but trying to take this very seriously. I don’t think we’re ever going to completely solve the problem. But no one should feel unwelcome.”
Where did this all start?
New turmoil followed the departure of, the school’s director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion education and professional development. Kole, who is nonbinary, reportedly faced obstacles in Kole’s work from the administration.
The Journal has previously reported extensively on Kole’s departure, which Kole says was the result of bias. Determine said he could not comment on what occurred, and Kole is now seeking legal representation.
However, as The Journal began speaking with more campus community members, some began to see Kole’s situation as part of the conflict between its predominantly Catholic administration and its diverse student body, especially those who do not agree with the church’s stance on gender and sexuality.
The college is being asked to reassess its approach through a community dialogue on Catholicism and being queer, to support gender-affirming care, to permit the open use of the Pride logo, and many other measures.
However, some of the demands might be too ambitious for the school.
‘Cat and mouse game’ to increase acceptance on campus
Part of Kole’s job was to promote acceptance of LGBTQ+ people on campus, within the confines of what the Catholic college, run by the Dominican Order, would accept.
In February 2023, about a year before Kole’s job ended, Kole brought PC alumna Maeve DuVall to campus. DuVall was invited to speak at PC as one of several diverse guests who were perceived as “different” in their workplaces because of their identities and was featured in a video shortly after she came out as a trans woman at Goldman Sachs at the age of 58.
“I think it was kind of a cat and mouse game Kole was playing with the university, trying to slowly nudge them to become more welcoming and accepting to LGBTQ+ people,” DuVall recalled.
Alison Caplan, an associate professor of world languages, addresses Providence College’s president, the Rev. Kenneth Sicard, as part of a group that delivered letters seeking greater acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community on campus.
DuVall remembers seeing the student center’s SHEPARD door during the campus tour. The acronym stands for Stopping Homophobia, Eliminating Prejudice, and Restoring Dignity, but it also honors the name of a gay University of Wyoming student who was brutally murdered by two men in 1998. At PC, this group supports the LGBTQ+ community.
When DuVall passed by SHEPARD’s door, she noticed it “was relatively sparse” in its decor. In DuVall’s view, a passerby probably wouldn’t have known the purpose of the club by looking at the entrance to its space.
According to campus advocates, this is how queer people have always navigated at PC without being too conspicuous.
An alumna’s same-sex marriage announcement ignored
Cate Latz, a PC alumna who worked at the college for a decade, didn’t come out until after graduating. As a student from 2009 to 2013, Latz said she “didn’t know if it was OK to be openly gay. She also didn’t know anyone who was.
Latz was openly gay and claimed she felt supported for a while while leading the college’s Office of Institutional Advancement and was confident that it was safe for her to be at work.
But when she married a woman in 2022, Latz felt a shift. After returning from her honeymoon, she and a coworker had a wedding shower at work, and she submitted a marriage announcement for the PC alumni magazine.
Latz never saw hers published.
Six months later, Latz recalled,” I get called into a meeting where I am informed that the class note I submitted was up to cabinet for review, and then the president decided it would not be included in the alumni magazine because of the Catholic definition of marriage.” ”
Students walk to class on the Providence College campus, where tensions have flared over issues relating to the LGBTQ+ community.
When asked if it was best to keep gay marriage announcements on campus, Sicard replied that he didn’t “want to go there yet” because the school is “early stages of discussion with our mission and ministry people and it’s a sensitive issue.” ”
” This is another area that we’re still investigating, still looking into, and the church’s position on marriage is clear,” Sicard said. ” It’s between a man and a woman, and I think that’s probably where that is coming from. ”
A professor’s anti-trans posting spawns a Title VI investigation
Chuck Toth had a long history of employment at PC, much like Latz. He started in 2000 as a part-time biology instructor, then rose to chair of the Biology Department and co-directed its neuroscience program.
In 2022, Toth resigned over another professor’s effort to dismiss the idea of transgender people as bogus and a” contagion” that has “infected groups” of educated people.
Richard Corradi, a professor of psychiatry at Case Western Reserve University, is the author of the quotes. The piece appeared in First Things, a religious publication.
Since the fall of 2021, tenured philosophy professor Giuseppe Butera has posted the article on the door of his office. He keeps several copies in a folder so that people can talk to him about it. He believes that lately, people have been passing them in
the trash. That’s no issue for Butera, who simply opens a nearby filing cabinet, pulls out additional copies and refills the pocket.
Butera claimed that only once has a student, who appeared to like the article, responded to his request to talk about it.
However, Toth, who has a trans daughter, filed a complaint about the article in the spring of 2022, claiming it upset eight PC faculty members, who are only a small minority of the organization’s roughly 4,800 students and nearly 500 faculty.
However, a Title VI investigation unfolded with extensive interviews and rebuttals. Note: prohibits discrimination against “race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance” while the more commonly known Title IX deals with sex discrimination. Although it was unclear why the college designated this as a Title VI issue, Quincy Bevely, assistant vice president for institutional diversity and Title VI Coordinator & Title IX deputy coordinator, stated that our Anti-Harassment and Discrimination Policy “prohibits more than discrimination against the protected characteristics of individuals mentioned in Title VI, which is why it is under my supervision.”
Ultimately, Provost Sean Reid, citing free expression, allowed the article in question to stay on Butera’s door, where it remains today.
In some cases, “I think stirring up the hornet’s nest is necessary,” Butera told The Journal, praising the article as an attempt to “call a profession back to its senses.”
Toth resigned before the investigation’s findings were made public, claiming that he couldn’t return home to his daughter while taking money from the college.
While gathering his things to leave, he noticed that a Pride flag, which had been taped to his window behind a set of closed blinds, was gone or, as he believes, stolen.
A long debate over the word ‘lavender,’ and a campus club fighting for recognition
On campus, Christopher Arroyo has served as an advisor to SHEPARD, the group for PC’s LGBTQ+ community. He claims that the club hasn’t been given clear instructions on what is permitted and what goes against Catholic tradition.
A case in point: In spring 2022, SHEPARD organized a “lavender prom” – an event for students to socialize over tea and food. has long been associated with the LGBTQ+ community, which caused concerns among some PC faculty.
Arroyo claimed that the administration had banned the word “lavender” because of the backlash against the event and the word, prompting Arroyo to file a Title IX complaint and the school to investigate its origins.
Sicard said, “I guess I don’t understand it well enough myself, but I think the people who were conducting the research ended up feeling okay.”
Although the situation has been resolved, SHEPARD faces challenges in maintaining its presence on campus and making plans for events.
SHEPARD’s co-founder reprimanded for advertising campus club
Paige Clausius-Parks, now the head of an education advocacy group, was one of SHEPARD’s founders while a student at PC.
She described the establishment of SHEPARD as a time when she was “pleasantly surprised” by the amount of support on campus, making the club 200 signatures in one day.
“Overall, starting the club was a good experience,” Clausius-Parks said, adding,” but then once we were approved, we ran into some of the barriers students are experiencing today.”
The club had no money in mind when it first began, and it was anticipated to avoid making too much noise. According to Clausius-Parks, she and other club members were told they could not go to a local Pride parade. They did so anyway. As Clausius-Parks put it, her policy was that it’s “easier to just do and beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”
So she eventually took out an ad in, Rhode Island’s LGBTQ+ publication, announcing SHEPARD’s presence on campus and listing its web address.
“We definitely got our hands slapped for that one,” said Clausius-Parks, who was reprimanded at a meeting with school leadership.
Hannah Sorila, a former SHEPARD member who graduated in 2017, remembered the club as having a quiet presence.
They had a very small kind of office space that was their home base while I was on campus, Sorila said. And when I even consider envisioning that, it feels very secret and secluded in a random corner of the building vibe.
According to Sorila, being queer on campus would lead to “a culture of silence and secrecy.”
What’s the latest? The cancellation of a campus art show
Recently, a canceled art show from a local artist, who is nonbinary, has ratcheted up tensions on campus.
Rivera’s work was supposed to be in a months-long exhibition with Providence College Galleries, but Provost Sean Reid canceled the show in March. The reason? a non-existent work that depicts the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus with horns on their heads.
Reid called the work “hurtful and offensive” to Catholics, going so far as to call it “sacrilegious,” and Sicard described the horns as “devil horns.”
Rivera’s work, called “Prayers to Nana Buruku,” plays on cultural influences from Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, and West Africa.
The open letter, which was signed by Rivera and others and was delivered to Sicard, claims that the cancellation wouldn’t have taken place “were the artist a white, cisgender man,” which Providence College spokesman Steve Maurano called “offensive,” given that the university has previously welcomed gay speakers on campus.
Since then, the school has held listening sessions to discuss a variety of issues at the university, including the exhibit’s cancellation and PC’s queer inclusion.
PC tends to be more traditional among Catholic colleges. For those who disagree, why attend?
Another Catholic institution that is more culturally relaxed is located 40 miles south of PC. An on-campus drag show, a forum on how to talk about your identity over a family dinner, and a Coming Out Week celebration were some of the highlights of the past.
James Waters, a biologist and transgender woman, might have fit in more favorably at Salve. Still, she chose PC, and the college wanted her, too, having hired her to teach its students.
“We love the mission of the school, and we want to see faith and reason working together to improve the world,” Waters wrote in a text. Additionally, new hires are required to write statements that support PC’s mission as part of the hiring process.
“There’s nothing about our mission or the Catholic Church that requires anti-trans or anti-LGBT actions/prohibitions to defend a Catholic identity,” Waters added.
‘I don’t think we’re ever going to solve the problem completely’
Sicard has tried to emphasize the college’s support for diversity, first with a statement in support of, then, most recently, with.
The Rev. Kenneth Sicard, president of Providence College, said his goal is to emphasize human dignity, and
Richard G., the bishop. Henning, who took over the Diocese of Providence last year and sits on PC’s Board of Trustees, offered firm support for Sicard and his work on both statements.
Henning said in a statement, “It has become difficult to dialogue in our polarized culture, and I am grateful for these brave and thoughtful publications.” They affirm the fullness of Catholic theology and moral teaching, and they affirm everyone’s human dignity and the need for compassionate companionship.”
However, PC’s LGBTQ community members ask: Does everyone on campus have the right to express free expression when the college censors them while allowing an anti-trans article to be posted on a professor’s door for years?
“I wouldn’t say there’s total freedom to do whatever or say whatever people want to say,” Sicard said. “I wouldn’t want to stop people from expressing themselves freely, but I won’t agree with everything.”
