By Catherine Welch, KBIA (Columbia, MO)
St. Louis, MO – The UM curators approved the policy change Thursday during a meeting at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.
With the action, sexual orientation joins other protected categories, such as race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, disability and Vietnam veteran status.
"It was important to have an expressed provision prohibiting any type of discrimination based on sexual orientation," said UM President Elson Floyd. "While that has been the policy of the university since 1999, it was not expressly included."
The policy goes into effect immediately.