Campus Pride, the leading national educational organization for LGBT and ally college students, is launching a brand new Sports Index to assess college athletics departments on their LGBT-friendliness and inclusion. Campus Pride has maintained an index of LGBT-friendly colleges since 2001 in order to help LGBT students and allies find welcoming campuses and to highlight the campuses' areas of improvement. The new Campus Pride Sports Index will focus on intercollegiate athletics and recreational sports specifically. This new tool will help student athletes and administrators determine how LGBT-friendly their athletic departments are based on their programs, practices, and policies.
In order to be listed on the index, colleges can simply fill out an online assessment asking about their athletic departments. The assessment determines whether departmental policies include nondiscrimination statements based on sexual orientation and gender identity, whether coaches and staff participate in LGBT inclusive training, whether gender-inclusive bathrooms and locker rooms are available, whether athletes participate in LGBT campaigns and campus-wide events, and more.
GLAAD is in partnership with Campus Pride for this project, as a member of the LGBT Sports Coalition. Among the Sports Index's many other partners are NCLR Sports Project, GO! Athlete, NCAA Office of Inclusion, the StandUp Foundation, and national sports leaders Dr. Pat Griffin, Dr. Sue Rankin, and Chris Mosier.
College sports administrators are encouraged to take the assessment here and make sure their campus gets listed.