[Diversitystudiescertificate] Fw: Two Items

[Hutchinson, Theodore]

Hello! Congratulations to all of our Diversity Studies Certificate graduates!

I believe we have about 25 students graduating this year and will proudly be wearing their DSC cords at graduation.


I know it is a busy time of year as you finish finals and prepare for graduation and/or to go home, but here are two announcements that the LGBT Center requested we share:


1. If you are graduating and/or walking in this Spring graduation AND if you are a member of the LGBT community, you are welcome to stop by the LGBT Center in Baker and pick up a Rainbow graduation cord to wear (and to keep). PRIDE graduation was held last Saturday but you did not need to attend that to wear a cord, nor do you have to be active with the LGBT Center. They are meant simply to proudly recognize graduates from the LGBT community here at OU.


2. A last minute Trans Vigil is being planned for tomorrow night, Thursday April 27th at 7 pm on the College Green. It is last minute because it was spurred by this year's 9th murder of a trans woman, Ms. Chay Reed, who was murdered earlier this week. The announcement of this event states that we "wanted to create a space to honor her life and all impacted by violence. It is a quiet vigil and folks will be welcome to share and more importantly be in community and solidarity with each other, solidarity with Chay and her loved ones, and trans folks around the world."


Here is the FB link to the event:  https://www.facebook.com/events/288241734960371/<https://www.facebook.com/events/288241734960371/>


Please know that these are even bigger issues with the current news of gay men being rounded up into camps in Chechnya. Here is a brief article about that:  http://attitude.co.uk/chechnyas-president-vows-to-eliminate-gay-population-by-the-end-of-may/<http://attitude.co.uk/chechnyas-president-vows-to-eliminate-gay-population-by-the-end-of-may/>

[http://attitude.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/feat-1.jpg]<http://attitude.co.uk/chechnyas-president-vows-to-eliminate-gay-population-by-the-end-of-may/>

Chechnya’s president ‘vows to eliminate gay population by the end of May’<http://attitude.co.uk/chechnyas-president-vows-to-eliminate-gay-population-by-the-end-of-may/>
attitude.co.uk
Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov has reportedly promised to wipe out the region's gay population by the start of Ramadan.

I also am at a loss to know what to do, how to stop such atrocities. We often think why didn't people do more when the Nazis rounded up the Jewish people...but now we have smaller instances of this and still don't know what to do to stop it...both here and abroad.


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Theo Jansen Hutchinson, Ph.D., Associate Professor
Critical Studies in Educational Foundations, Program Coordinator
Director, Undergraduate Diversity Studies Certificate
McCracken Hall 302X, Ohio University
Athens, OH  45701
Email: hutchint at ohio.edu
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