Vanderbilt University will now offer sex-reassignment surgery as part of their student insurance coverage, much to the chagrin of leading state officials.
According to the Vanderbilt Hustler, the change was proposed by Dr. Louise Hanson, director of the Vanderbilt student health center. Hanson reportedly met with several student patients who wanted to pursue the operations but couldn’t afford them.
Vanderbilt, which was founded by a Methodist bishop in the 1870s, would be the 72nd school to offer the surgeries as part of their student insurance plan.
But some politicians, like Congresswoman Diane Black, abhor the idea.
Let’s be honest, this decision is not about the health and wellbeing of Vanderbilt University students, it is about the political agenda of liberal university administrators. Our institutions of higher learning exist to graduate students who are career ready and are prepared to compete in the global economy, not to play politics by providing insurance coverage of medically unnecessary procedures while raking in federal grants. With this stunt, Vanderbilt University has shown itself to be completely out of touch with the values of most Tennesseans, and has surely alienated more than a few students, parents, and donors. I’m especially concerned that, by the university’s own admission, this decision was ‘not deeply debated in any way’ – showing just how little thought went in to such a far-reaching policy. For all the advanced degrees that exist among Vanderbilt University’s senior administration, there is a painfully obvious lack of commonsense.
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