Challenging School Policies and Decisions

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Updated October 2024

Despite great strides in LGBTQ inclusion in recent years at college campuses, nearly one-third of LGBTQ students still experience bullying, harassment, or assault at college, according to our report. Less than half of LGBTQ students say that their universities have resources for LGBTQ students, in particular, transgender students’ resources such as all-gender bathrooms. 

If you are seeking to make your campus safer for yourself and LGBTQ peers today and in the future, part of this change may mean altering campus policies. These tips to challenge higher education policies come from LGBTQ students who have been there. Use these and many resources to improve the services and safety of LGBTQ students on your campus. 

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS

The First Amendment protects people’s rights to free speech, expression, press, and assembly, as well as the right to petition the government. However, public and private colleges and universities are held to different legal standards when setting internal regulations for First Amendment rights on campus. 

Some local and state laws directly prohibit schools from offering classes and services with LGBTQ or DEI-related content. Find out about your state’s restrictions from the Chronicle of Higher Education’s DEI Tracker.

Here are some guides to LGBTQ student rights on campus. Remember that it is essential to know your school’s specific free speech policies, usually found on your university’s website. 

• Campus Free Speech Guide | PEN America
• Transgender Students at Colleges and Universities | Lambda Legal
• LGBTQ Youth Rights | Southern Poverty Law Center

Responding to Permitted Discriminatory Hate Speech

You may come across anti-LGBTQ speech on campus that university leaders have not interpreted as hate speech. It’s important for students to understand how leadership differentiates between hate and discrimination and think creatively about how they can use those same protections to advance their cause. Take, for example, the following case study:

BUILD COMMUNITY

• Building an LGBTQ student group can help LGBTQ students feel supported and empowered to make changes on campus. Read our Building LGBTQ Community resource for tips to help guide your community-building journey.

  • Go to community events, make friends with other LGBTQ students,  and be involved with affinity groups. The more connected you are to the community, the bigger your voice becomes when you seek to improve your school.  

• Focus on what your specific community needs. Make sure your decisions to challenge school policy are based on issues agreed upon by a diverse and intersectional group of LGBTQ students.
   
  • Volunteering at your school or community LGBTQ or diversity center is a great way to see what programs, organizations, and services you can utilize or be involved in to help better your campus and QT community. 
    • • Find an LGBTQ center at your school via the Consortium of  Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals. 
        
        
  • Strengthen your network of advocates by building coalitions with student organizations that may serve different communities but share your values. 
    • See the Campaign Workshop’s guide to building coalitions for more information.
      
  
  “Build a team. I owe everything to the people I have had the privilege of working with….Their insight and diversity of perspective enriched our work in incredibly  meaningful ways that also helped us ensure that our work honored intersectionality  and the needs of the student body." - Sofia Lawsky, Point Flagship Scholar
  

FIND ALLIED FACULTY AND UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP

• Find and recruit faculty who are allies and are willing to open a dialogue with university administration on issues.
  
  
  • Ask supportive faculty and administrators about how university context, history, or other factors could affect your goals. Librarians and professors in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies or similar departments are generally knowledgeable on these topics. Have past student organizations lobbied for the same thing? Are university leaders’ decisions constrained by state laws? Which university offices might want to support your ideas and why?
    • Read how faculty, staff, and students can work together in PEN  America’s Campus Free Speech Guide and Rutgers toolkit for campus organizers.  

"There are always teachers who feel strongly about the same causes as you. Talk to those people about opportunities at school where you can bring awareness. " - Emily Odenkirk, Point BIPOC Alum.

• Network with university leadership through informational interviews –  have friends in power before you need to challenge a policy, decision,  or mandate. 
  • Read the Yale Office of Career Strategy’s guide to informational interviewing for tips.
    
    
• Get the support of your student government. Make sure student government leaders are briefed on your issues and ready to advocate when they next meet with university leaders like the president,  provost, or dean of students. See HRC’s resource on how to pass a resolution for more information.
  
  
• Have tough conversations with university staff and leadership constructively. Learn how to engage in constructive conversations with someone whose beliefs differ from your own.  
  • Learning how to articulate your goals for making your school a safer place for LGBTQ students and positioning yourself as a knowledgeable resource within the community goes a long way towards beginning to dismantle bias and prejudice within a school space. 

“During an era characterized by polarization, where visceral reactions and antagonism have become the norm, the capacity to avoid disputation and, instead,  achieve tangible growth has grown rarer and rarer. People with this skill have learned, through difficult practice, how to listen and draw insight even from arguments they disagree with. They can recognize that a conversation ending in dissension simply means more time to accumulate further rationales for the next encounter. Soon enough, you will find educating others in your everyday life, while continuously gathering diverse perspectives to modify and reinforce their own, to be an effortless act.” - Ari Pero, Point Flagship Scholar. 

SPEAK OUT

• Write op-eds in your school newspaper to influence public opinion and advocate for a proposed change with actionable steps. 
  • See How to Write an Op-Ed from the National Organization for  Women for a few ideas to get started.
    
    
•  Attend university town halls at any given opportunity to ask questions and broadcast your ideas.
  
  
• Plan events, share ideas, and promote petitions via social media.
  • Read Maryville University's guide to activism on social media.
    
    
• Once you have become politically engaged, encourage others to do the same: utilize your knowledge and platforms to make issue advocacy accessible to everyone.  
  • Leaders are those who are just as determined to mobilize and  empower their peers to fight for change as they are determined  to make that change themselves: “pay it forward and pay it  back.” Pass down those opportunities that you found valuable to continue this critical cycle of growth, empowerment, and action. 
    
    
• Report harassment or discrimination. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 forbids sex-based discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance. This regulation specifies that federally supported schools and programs cannot treat people differently, refuse them services or housing, impose sanctions or behavioral rules, or discriminate based on sex or appearance.
  • If you think you have been discriminated against on your campus, and if you are safe to do so, report it to your campus Title IX Office, Bias Incident Response Team, or community organizations like Campus Pride. Find more on how to report instances of discrimination here from Campus Pride. 

“Never underestimate the power of your voice. Whatever you say, chances are someone will listen to you. And even if they don’t, you may instill an idea or concept in their mind and plant the seeds for understanding.” - Felix Kiene Gualtieri, Point Flagship Scholar. 

SELF-CARE

• Advocating for yourself and your community can be exhausting and lead to burnout. Make self-care a priority. Here are a few resources about how to  take care of yourself as an activist:
  • • Activist Self Care 
    • Rest for Resistance 
      •  Self-care and prevention of burnout among activists 
    • For more resources for LGBTQ students, visit Purdue Global.

"It's easy to get overwhelmed by social media and the onslaught of bad news. Try to focus on cultivating your own garden and doing something in your community that uses your unique gifts to make an impact. Change starts in ourselves, then our families, then our communities, then the world!" - Sydney Rinehart, Point Flagship Alum.

"Love yourself! This is my favorite motto and what helped me carry myself on despite the adversity. The moment students learn how to practice self-love will be the moment they will naturally make a difference at their schools for themselves and the different communities in their surroundings." - Luis Paulino, Point BIPOC Alum.

Student Words of Wisdom: Insights from LGBTQ Students Advocating for Change

“As part of the student government, I pushed our administration to recoup our  Diversity space on campus.” - Pau Brunet-Fuertes, Point Community College Alum

"This past year I served as my university Student Body President. I was able to utilize an endowment fund dedicated to my position to give money to our Center for  Sexuality and Gender Diversity to help fund the newly created Trans Closet and other QT student services." - Niya McAdoo, Point BIPOC Alum

"I got my university to put students' preferred names on their degrees instead of defaulting to their birth names to ensure that students who haven't been able to go through the name change process can still have the correct name read and printed.  I went through my Registrar's office and went through multiple meetings over the course of a few months to enact this change in time for graduation this past May! " -  Jo Lew, Point Flagship Alum and BIPOC Scholar

“After a few conversations, my professors for Health Assessment and Maternity have considered the language they use when talking about genitals, gender, and childbirth. After advocating with the GSA and student accessibility services (a great ally on our campus!), the school is looking at increasing the number of gender-neutral restrooms.” - Shayn Ember, Point Flagship Alum

"It is important to remember what we are fighting for whenever we need to make sacrifices. My proudest achievement was creating a student group that fought for equity and justice in my school directly against our administration. This resulted in dozens of meetings that, under the guise of conversation, boiled down to scolding.  But when the prize is a community where even one person feels safer at school, I  was willing to sit through hours of those meetings. In the fight for queer safety and happiness, our victories will be worth more than almost any cost.” - Lukas Borja, Point Flagship Scholar

“I've had many conversations with teachers about how to support and highlight  LGBT+ voices and identities. These conversations are often initiated by faculty once you show yourself to be open, kind, and growth-oriented. I've helped teachers understand, navigate, and use neo-pronouns within the classroom, helped get more access to gender-neutral restrooms, and increased in-school access to sexual health aids all by engaging in respectful conversations with teachers and admin.  Sometimes all it takes is confidence and faith in the good intentions of my community" - Cara Weathers, Point Flagship Scholar

“After months of frustration at seeing my friends deadnamed and having my own pronouns disregarded in classrooms, I put forward a proposal to G@MIT on implementing consequences for the repeated misgendering of students by faculty and staff. I was subsequently appointed to the executive board of G@MIT (MIT’s  LGBTQ cultural organization), where I have continued to research precedents and prepare our recommendations to MIT’s DEI Office.” - Ari Pero, Point Flagship Scholar

“I am the former executive board officer at my previous college’s (Austin  Community College) student government and after being elected as President I  started creating legislation to go into the next year's administration and hopeful to amend our constitution to become more inclusive. I created a policy for everyone to list their pronouns if joining via Zoom for it to be mandatory and in person to have name tags that listed every member's pronouns. I and another Point  Foundation BIPOC Scholar Kay Trent who is my wonderful friend and colleague, started on the creation of a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Officer for our student government who would be responsible for overseeing all student organizations and ensuring that they are meeting DEI initiatives every semester.” -  Justin Parker, Point BIPOC Scholar