Son of Fresno Pacific’s first president says university ‘wrong’ to reject LGBTQ+ club
The son of a former president of Fresno Pacific University has thrown his support behind creating an LGBTQ+ meeting space after school leaders rejected a student petition for a campus club, saying such a club would not align with the school’s Mennonite faith.
Richard John Wiebe, the son of Arthur Wiebe, posted an open letter to the board of trustees on Tuesday, pledging $25,000 from his retirement fund to create an off-campus LGBTQ lectureship at a local Mennonite church.
“The Board of Trustees decision on the LGBTQ Club is wrong, anti-Anabaptist and contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ, the 14th Dali Lama, and the United States Council of Catholic Bishops as well as Pope Francis,” Wiebe wrote.
A Fresno Pacific University spokesperson declined to comment on Wiebe’s remarks.
Wiebe taught philosophy and media studies at the university from 1977 until he retired in 2015. His father was president from 1960 to 1975 and taught there until he died in 1994. The college’s education center is named after Arthur Wiebe.
Richard Wiebe’s wife, Billie Jean, was an associate communications professor at the college before her death from COVID-19 in 2020.
Justin St. George, the student behind the movement to start the pride club, said Wednesday that his adviser has been talking with Wiebe, and they hope to work out when and where the first meeting will take place.
“We have a lot of interest to host our first meeting amongst our Central Valley Faith Coalition, across multiple denominations, including Mennonite,” he said. “Future events and meetings will be posted on our Birds for Pride Instagram page, which we just launched a few days ago.”
President Joseph Jones was advised to reject the bid for an LGBTQ+ club because it did not align with the university’s “Confession of Faith,” a theological position consistent with the U.S. Conference of Mennonite Brethren Churches, or USMB, which governs the university through the FPU board of trustees.
The Confession states, in part: “God instituted marriage as a lifelong covenant between a man and a woman for the purpose of companionship, encouragement, sexual intimacy and procreation.”
Although discrimination against sexual orientation is prohibited under Title IX laws at most universities, private universities controlled by religious organizations can get exemptions if the laws are “inconsistent with the religious tenets of the organization,” according to the U.S. Department of Education.