Jennifer Braly
THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — Excuses are a plenty from the University of Arkansas Fort Smith administration, but it does seem the transgender status of student Jennifer Braly has university officials dancing about with contradictory stories.
Never mind that Braly has spoken about gender identity disorder twice in the past, and that she was asked by an instructor to speak to the class three months in advance.
Braly says the lecture was cancelled at the last-minute, apparently over a student complaint she believes. The instructor who invited her to speak, Dr. Laura King, confronted college officials: ‘I did go in [Dr. Henry Rinne, Dean, Dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences] Rinnes office and he told me that Jennifer Braly was not to be allowed to speak. That it was the policy of the university for reason that he couldn’t discuss.’ - from KNWA News
“. . . according to Ms. Braly, she was told by Dr. Rinne that she would not be allowed to speak in any classroom at this University from that day forward. Ms. Braly reports that Dr. Rinne cited a lack of qualification to lecture in a University setting as the reasoning behind this decision.” - from The Lions’ Chronicle
“Ms. Braly received an email from Dr. Rita Barrett, Associate Professor of Psychology and Department Chair, which, according to Ms. Braly said, “All of my faculty are now diligently preparing for the closure of the semester. They must be in compliance with their syllabi, grading, final exams, graduation exercises, etc. and it is impossible to afford more class time to accommodate an additional speaker at one week before finals.Therefore, your scheduled speaking engagements in any course in my department (PSYC, CJ, SOCI, ANTH) have been cancelled.” - from The Lions’ Chronicle
Between the news reports, the college website and the student newspaper there seems to be a wide range of excuses for the cancellation and details of the events but they all point to dubious motives by college officials. It also seem clear that before Braly will ever be able to speak to a class again, she’ll have to meet new criteria that the college enacted after the cancellation. Something Braly says is an attempt to silence her.
Student newspaper: Breaking News: Transgender Student Lecture Sparks Debate | lionschronicle.uafs.edu.
KNWA News: Transgender Student Not Permitted to Speak in Class.
Jennifer Braly (Photo – Facebook)
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Filed under: Discrimination, Equality, Civil Rights, Transgender, Transsexual, Trans, cancelled lecture, Dr. Henry Rinne, Dr. Laura King, Dr. Rita Barrett, Jennifer Braly, University of Arkansas Fort Smith
Declaring my civil rights, humanity and equality null and void is to declare war on me, and this and all other resulting acts against me will be met in kind.
and just what kind of “qualifications” is a GUEST lecturer “required” to have? Hmmmm???
seems if that excuse alone were used across thee board and for this university entirely there would be very very few guest lectures on campus!
Good point. Students at UAFS are only going to get filtered lectures.
in one semester, one class when i was in med school we had to do an oral report on of the subjects addresssed.
and i did mine on the whole LGBT aspect concentrating on the Transsexual aspect.
that was just a couple weeks after i had done Massive research on my own before i got teh books for that class so i didn’t know yet of the report subjects-n-all… i had finally stumbled on REAL info on Trans and teh research i did was trying to prove to myself that this is just more BS about it….
about 100+ man hours and all i could determine was >> no wonder my life had been so F**up<<< always leaking through the denial and freaking if someone found out.. like my first wife LOL, she thought i was having an affair! EEK! LOL
it's all good now and we are great supportive friends now.
"I can't believe i married a woman! I just can't believe I married a woman!!!" she said =P
and the class, i had not only the web info but also support material and books at the Gender Idenity Center of Colorado in Denver to supplement the other research. (gicofcolo.org)
yeahhh, it was a weak but daring any body to ask i f I am Trans. the one student i hoped would ask didn’t though, rats!
but one thing i did say is that you may already know a person who is trans… and then i said that there is a trans-person that they do know that has not yet come out about any aspect.
Ooo i was daring but i did chicken out that time. next semester i did come out though.
my life has changed so radically better, one of the best things is that i LOST so much Anger!?!?!?!!!
and the best wardrobe purge ever LOL
I have given a talk as a guest lecturer in a a class on Business Diversity and have participated a presentation (with two other transpeople) two separate years at a Human Sexuality Class (here at two Universities in New Orleans. I have also been on several group seminars for the Law School here in New Orleans and presented in the Uniterian Church.
As a transitioned woman, I guess I would be run out of Arkansas.
Lizzy
Thanks for your comments.
I have talked about this issue a lot on my YouTube channel and the thanks I got from quite a few school employees and friends of employees was made to feel like an incredible hack and like I was bandying about rumors and hear-say just to get attention for myself when I was just telling what I saw and stating my opinions. I have also been told I shouldn’t have said anything before I had both sides of the story, then turned away when I sought the other side, then told, that of course they can’t comment on it but they released a statement online, and multiple times that we cannot possible know yet if the school was being bigoted (I wasn’t aware there was a time requirement…). I love the school in many ways, but they have now made me feel insecure at a place I once went to to feel safe, ousted and even afraid for my enrollment status at a place I once felt I belonged.
Squatting to pee don’t make a woman.
[...] Jennifer Braly made the news a few weeks ago when the university stopped her from lecturing about transgender topics in class. Read more: http://lexiecannes.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/u-of-arkansas-officials-stops-transgender-student-from-g… [...]