Discrimination Policy Amended: New Policy Wording Adds Military Status to Protected Group List

24 March 2006 Columbia Spectator article "Discrimination Policy Amended: New Policy Wording Adds Military Status to Protected Group List".  Note:  When Columbia revised its antidiscrimination rules to include all military veterans it began the statement with the words "Columbia University is committed to providing a learning environment free from unlawful discrimination".  Since the previous antidiscrimination rules had been used to argue against ROTC on the basis of discrimination against openly homosexual people in the military this wording is interesting because "Don't ask, don't tell" is the law, and therefore not unlawful.  However, this Spectator article adds another possible explanation.  University spokesperson Susan Brown said that the new statement "is a semantic clarification, not a policy shift. New York State Law had already held military status as a protected category, and the old policy included “any other legally protected status”".  This suggests the possibility that Columbia may have been trying to include in its policy all forms of unlawful discrimination without meaning to accept forms of discrimination mandated for the military by federal law, but Columbia has not commented more definitively on the wording change.