Gay Student Ousted From John Brown University

SILOAM SPRINGS, ARKANSAS - John Brown University dismissed student Michael Guinn from school Jan. 13 for violating campus lifestyle guidelines related to his sexual orientation and material found in his online journals.
Guinn, 22, who said he became a Christian two years ago, said he chose to attend JBU last fall because it’s in the town he grew up in. He said he always admired the unique bond the administration had with the student body. While working at the school’s cafeteria last year, he observed the faculty interact with the students.
Another reason he chose JBU, a private Christian liberal-arts university, was for the free tuition he received, because his father is an English professor and his mother is the campus nurse, he said.
But from the beginning of his time at JBU, Guinn was asked to adhere to behavioral codes not required of other students by the administration, he said. Guinn was ultimately dismissed from the university on the grounds that he violated the unique agreement.
JBU media relations and student-development officials declined to comment on any specifics of the school’s agreement with Guinn or its interactions with him.
JBU, in a statement released Tuesday by Steve Beers, vice president of student development, said, "In all cases, students who have been disciplined have violated agreedupon behavioral expectations. These behavioral expectations are based upon JBU’s biblical and cultural core values."
Guinn said that he is the first openly gay student to be admitted to JBU. He said there are secretly gay students at JBU who have approached him and thanked him for being so honest about himself. He said it encouraged them to deal more honestly with their own sexual-identity issues.
Guinn also said that since his dismissal, those same students have expressed they are now scared to admit their struggles with homosexuality and fear they will never be accepted by the Christian community. "Those gay students who told me they almost had the courage and self-confidence, because I was open, to come out and admit their struggle with their sexuality have said they may never do so now," Guinn said.
Guinn said he has spent many hours as a Christian dealing with homosexuality, praying about how to live according to the Bible and how to conduct himself. Although Guinn said he doesn’t have all of the answers, he has made the decision to be celibate and said he has never doubted his faith or felt unloved as a child of God.
Guinn said he began dealing with homosexuality at age 12. "When all the boys started liking girls, I realized that I liked the boys," he said.
The university learned that Guinn was gay last summer, after an anonymous source e-mailed the administration a link to Guinn’s online journal on the Xanga Web log community in which Guinn makes his sexual orientation known, he said.
Guinn said he was called into a meeting with the school’s administration the week before school started last fall.
The administration told Guinn that in addition to the regular behavior covenant students sign, he was to abide by a separate code of conduct because of his sexual orientation, Guinn said. "We seek to consistently apply the Community Covenant to all students," according to a statement released by Beers.
In several meetings prior to school starting, Guinn said he was told:
• Not to dress in women’s clothing;
• If he participated in sports, he could not slap other players on the butt;
• He could not hug or shake hands with other men for too long;
• He could not "broadcast" his lifestyle; and
• He could not tell other students he was gay until he got to know them well. "The problem with that rule was, I know from so much experience, that when you tell certain people you’re gay, they drop you. I didn’t want to go through the pain of making a friend and then maybe having them drop me after I told them. You have to tell people up-front, and if they still choose to be your friend, they are for real," Guinn said.
He said he was also told to keep his personal life out of class discussions about sexuality.
Guinn said the contract also stated he was to not have a relationship with a man while at JBU and to follow the student handbook guidelines for all students concerning sexual misconduct.
Guinn said he told JBU he was celibate and planned to remain celibate.
Beers declined to comment on the specifics of Guinn’s agreement with the university, saying it would be inappropriate to publicly divulge specifics about any particular student.
Because of the strict rules he had to follow and the pressure that comes with starting a new school, Guinn said, he had several emotional breakdowns within the first few weeks of school.
At that point, Guinn said, he told his residence director about his frustration with not telling students the truth about himself. "I told him if this is what it was going to be like, I couldn’t stay. But he said he didn’t think they meant the rule to be so strict. It just meant be careful and discerning with who I told about being gay," Guinn said.
In his time at JBU, he made friends whom he considers as close to him as family, and most of the student body was very welcoming and accepting, Guinn said. "The student body was the most prevalent example of Christ’s love and treatment at JBU. The students never harassed me or discriminated against me," Guinn said.
Before school started, Guinn was asked to e-mail his roommate to inform him of his sexual orientation to give his roommate the opportunity to decline. Guinn’s roommate, assigned through a lottery, decided to remain his roommate, and they always respected one another and got along very well, Guinn said. "He was a self-professed homophobe when we met, but we have always got along very well since. He and his mother prayed about it and she told him to be my roommate. She said just because homosexuality was my sin, it didn’t mean it would become his," Guinn said.
Although he was settling into the student population, enjoying being a member of the Cathedral Choir and getting involved with musical theater, Guinn said that every few weeks, another meeting was called by the administration. He said that in the meetings he had to constantly dispel rumors or was admonished for being "too flamboyant."
Many of the rumors or reports of being too vocal about his orientation were taken from statements made by Guinn on his Facebook and Xanga blogs. "They said they didn’t check up on me, but they would pull out three-ring binders full of my blog entries printed out," Guinn said.
Guinn said a meeting after Thanksgiving break was particularly heated. Guinn said he was accused of trying to make other students gay after he took a friend and fellow student to a cross-dressing show in Fort Smith. The student he took to the show requested a meeting with the administration to complain about the fact that Guinn was treated differently than other students.
After that meeting, Guinn was asked to write a letter to the administration promising he would not violate any more terms of the contract set out at the beginning of the year.
Guinn said that in the letter, he did not promise to not say he was gay, but to be more careful and considerate of what he said to whom about his sexual orientation.
He was also asked to, and agreed to, not only refrain from dressing in drag at any time but to withdraw from the drag scene, Guinn said.
Sometime before classes resumed in January, someone anonymously e-mailed administrators and informed them of potentially offensive materials posted on Guinn’s Facebook blog.
When asked by the Siloam Springs Herald-Leader to comment, JBU again responded that it would be inappropriate to comment on specific issues related to student discipline. JBU noted that Facebook is a public Internet blog site.
Guinn said he posted pictures of himself in drag from before he attended JBU but meant to post the pictures under a private setting that would only allow certain people to access them. Guinn said he mistakenly posted them in a public manner that allowed access to anyone.
In his first week back to school in January, Guinn was contacted by school officials and asked to attend another meeting. At the meeting, content from Guinn’s Facebook site was printed out and sections about his sexual orientation highlighted. "They tried to make my whole Facebook profile look like a personals ad looking for sex. There is a section that asks if you are interested in men or women. Those are the only options, and I decided to be honest and answer ‘ men, ’" Guinn said.
Guinn, a licensed massage therapist, said that at the end of his profile he wrote that he would offer "cute guys free massages."
The administration told Guinn he was going to be dismissed by the university, meaning he has the choice to return next semester, Guinn said.
When asked why Guinn was dismissed, Beers said, "We work redemptively with all students who struggle with behavior issues in their lives, and we discipline students after we have credible, substantial and typically repeated evidence of violation of our Community Covenant."
Guinn said that many JBU students have materials and pictures on their blogs, particularly Facebook, that contradict the lifestyle contract they signed promising not to smoke, drink, have sex or gamble while attending JBU. "There are many blogs with JBU students smoking hookah pipes, gambling, drinking beer and smoking in pictures," Guinn said.
Guinn said he will not return to JBU. He doesn’t know what he is going to do next, but for now he wants to continue working in the cafe in JBU’s student center.
When asked if openly gay students will be admitted to the university in the future, Beers said, "We gain our directive on admissions from our JBU Community Covenant. The Covenant states, making the choice to attend JBU means having a sympathetic appreciation for our guiding principles and choosing to abide by our community expectations."
from Northwest Arkansas News