| Description |
College and university policymakers are often forced to react to incidents of homo- or transphobia on their campuses. This study explores the case of one institution, Watershed University, that endeavored to add protections to the institution's anti-discrimination policy for sexual orientation and gender, following an incident of viral cyberbullying. Up to the point of the triggering incident, silence pervaded the campus in terms of discussion of LGBTQ+ campus community members' experiences of the institution. Using the triggering incident and subsequent policy change process, this study examines the contextual and political dynamics in the wake of a broken silence surrounding the LGBTQ+ community. Participants in this autoethnographic case take up four themes related to this experience: a) a commitment to the stated institutional value of inclusion, b) participants' insecurity related to administrative identity, c) participants' insecurity related to ally identity, and d) a commitment to broken silence. The exploration of these themes leads to the development of a methodology particular to this case, but with strong potential relevance to other similarly situated institutions, and is designed to articulate both insight and inquiry at both the policymaking level as well as at the level of the autoethnographic street-level bureaucrat. This methodology intentionally seeks to redistribute both structural and rhetorical power within the institution to foster a deepening discourse, challenging those power and voice inequities within the institution. |
