HBCU leaders focus on LGBT inclusion during summit with advocacy group
The summit on LGBT inclusion hadn’t even wrapped for the day. Still, Walter Kimbrough was already mulling over an idea to bring back to his campus. “Somebody talked about the president of Morgan State has sort of like, an advisory board,” said Kimbrough, president of Dillard University, a private institution in New Orleans. “So I was like, yeah, I could do that. And do it immediately.”
“I really want them to view us as real, genuine partners in this work,” said Leslie Hall, manager of the advocacy group’s HBCU Project. “And that we are here to support them, as they go back to their campuses.”
More than a dozen HBCUs were represented at the gathering, including Morehouse College in Atlanta, Fayetteville State University in North Carolina and Howard University in Washington, D.C., according to the Human Rights Campaign. Hall said it was important to “shoot for the top” with the event, bringing the issue directly to higher-ups within university administrations — people who could quickly spark changes. “My program put our money where our mouth is, we funded their trip here, we funded their stay, because we are very serious about making sure that these leaders know that this is an important investment that they need to make or need to expand on their campuses,” Hall said.
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