SJSU President Don Kassing sent a campuswide e-mail Jan. 29 to inform students, staff and faculty that he has suspended all university blood drives. He wrote that the suspension was ordered “on the grounds that the U.S. Federal Drug Administration’s lifetime blood donor deferral affecting gay men violates our non-discrimination policy.”
Update 2/7/08:
Related Stories:
Feb. 7, 2008: Plot thickens in wake of blood drive suspension
Feb. 7, 2008: Where to donate blood off campus
Feb. 4, 2008: President halts blood drives; policy questioned
Jan. 30, 2008: Blood drives stopped
Feb. 7, 2008: Opinion: This Queer Life: Bad Blood
Feb. 4, 2008: Opinion: Making a deadly situation worse
Poll: Do you agree with SJSU’s blood drive ban?
Other Links:
Letter from President Kassing
Other links from the President’s office
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I can only wonder as to how many people are going to die as a result of Kassing’s foolish crusade.
this is not “Kassing’s foolish crusade,” as you would think it is. this is a stand against the FDA’s discrimanitory stance against the gay community! And even though you would like to think that Kassing is responsible for this ban, when in reality it is something that has been adopted and supported by various groups at our university. if you want to advocate for change you need to be lobbying against the FDA’s discrimantory regulations, not against people(s) who are striving for the equallity of all individuals.
The FDA policy banning gays from donating blood does not constitute a discriminatory action against the gay community; discrimination typically entails a positive loss on the part of those that are being discriminated against. The gay community is not losing anything tangible by being barred from donating blood. It goes without saying that Don Kassing must be a fool to think that his silly university’s anti-discrimination policy could supplant the regulatory statutes of the federal government. Mind you, the FDA is a federal agency. The discriminatory policies of the military have been upheld time and time again, and yet they have not been barred from gathering recruits on university campuses nationwide. The FDA has a much more rational basis to bar gays from donating blood then does the military from barring gay recruits. Kissing’s policy is not likely to hold up in court. One thing that surprises me is that no one has thought that Kassing might be overstepping his jurisdiction; Kassing is not just barring blood drives from being held at the university, he is barring student groups as well as employees of the university from organizing blood drives, if this applies to student groups that wish to hold blood drives of campus, then he certainly is overstepping his jurisdiction. This might become a civil liberties issue as well, albeit of a different sort, after all, Kassing is preventing students from organizing.
Don Kassing has obviously caved into the politiclly correct-motivated demands of a small but vocal homosexual mafia.
How barbaric to deprive innocent victims of a life-saving procedure - simply from a policy disagreement.
[…] Where to donate blood off campus Feb. 4, 2008: President halts blood drives; policy questioned Jan. 30, 2008: Blood drives stopped Feb. 7, 2008: Opinion: This Queer Life: Bad Blood Feb. 4, 2008: Opinion: Making a deadly situation […]
[…] halts blood drives; policy questioned Feb. 4, 2008: Opinion: Making a deadly situation worse Jan. 30, 2008: Blood drives stopped Poll: Do you agree with SJSU’s blood drive […]
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