by Stephen Maiale
Transgender students at Rowan are facing a problem which can seriously upset their sense of gender equity in classes. Students have the option of inputing a preferred name on Rowan’s Banner self-service system, Rowan’s database where students and professors can access registration, grades, class rosters and more. According to Rowan University’s Preferred name policy, https://confluence.rowan.edu/display/POLICY/Preferred+Name+Policy, all offices and personnel at the University are expected to respect a person’s desire to be known by their preferred name, covering all areas including academic instruction, advising, and student life. This option is so students can still receive the proper treatment that they expect any other person would receive, but this has recently been at risk at Rowan. Since professors often pull their class rosters from Blackboard instead of Rowan’s Banner system, these names are sometimes overlooked because an preferred name input will not transfer over from Banner over to Blackboard. This puts transgender students at risk of having their dead name outed to classmates and putting them in danger of discrimination from their peers.
This disagreement between Rowan’s systems does not just put students at risk, but is also a potential violation of the Title IX law. According to the Title IX website, www.titleix.info, Title IX is a law passed in 1972 which requires that every educational program receiving federal funding must provide gender equity and treatment for boys and girls. Jeraca Marsh, a Rowan student and Title IX activist, explains that “Title IX make me feel more comfortable with myself and my loved ones in expressing ourselves freely; that we are all given a sense of security from possible discrimination and unnecessary anxiety for being different.”
Marsh also has insider experience with this issue and its effect on student housing: “There are students still in the system with their dead name and have the possibility of being placed in dorms as roommates with students opposite of their identified gender. I have encountered this situation before, and though it was thankfully resolved with no issues, it still had the potential to make a student so nervous with their everyday living to completely overturn their sense of comfort and safety inside and outside of classes.”
When interviewed about their awareness of Title IX and this issue regarding preferred names, a sample group of about 30 students replied saying that “I have never heard of Title IX” and were mostly unaware of this issue as a whole. Marsh stresses that “More activism and awareness of Title IX is absolutely required. No one usually knows what Title IX is unless they are faculty or involved through working with housing like myself. The general student populous being oblivious both makes it difficult to gather feedback on these ongoing issues and for reporting these problems as they occur.”
The Pig's Pen 