Quote:
Sonoma State Universitys Academic Senate has approved a resolution opposing blood drives on campus claiming they discriminate against gay men.
Thursdays 21-13 vote conflicts with a vote by the Associated Students Senate that supports the monthly blood drives on campus. The votes are non-binding and a decision on the issue rests with SSU President Dr. Ruben Arminana.
Susan Kashack, associate vice president for communications and marketing, said Arminana is out of town and has not taken a position on the issue.
The Academic Senate resolution urges the university to immediately rescind the authorization of blood drives on campus.
The Food and Drug Administrations guidelines prohibit blood donations from men who have had sex with another man since 1977 to prevent donations of blood that might contain the HIV virus.
The resolution states that policy may have made sense when it was first implemented, because then the cause of AIDS was unknown and the disease seemed to target gay men preferentially.
However, 24 years later, the cause of AIDS is known, and the HIV virus that causes AIDS is routinely screened for in donated blood, the resolution states.
The issue arose in March when SSU professor Rick Luttmann challenged the blood drives on campus, claiming they discriminate against gays. He drafted a resolution calling on the SSU administration to rescind them immediately.
The monthly SSU blood drives provide the Blood Bank of the
Redwoods with about 5 percent of its total supply in Sonoma County.
Kashack said 38 percent of the countrys population is eligible to give blood but only 5 percent of eligible donors do so.
The issue also has been debated at San Jose State University where President Don Kassing announced a campuswide ban earlier this year on blood drives based on the schools anti-discrimination policy.
The SSU Academic Senate resolution states SSU can join San Jose State University, the University of California at Berkeley and many other universities and organizations to force the government to confront and reverse this discriminatory gesture.
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I dont like the idea of banning blood drives on campuses. I do believe that the rule banning gay men from donating is out of date, but they shouldnt take away the chances of other people donating.
Blood donations are low in quantities, but taking away life saving substances from people in need to make a stand is, in my mind, a really shitty way to do it.