Policy makers for MSU's Academic Council have redefined the meaning of LBGT to mean Lacking Better Gender Treatment.

MSU, a university under the flag of diversity, has been fumbling with a gender clause that needs to be added to its Anti-Discrimination Policy.

By means of a footnote, the Academic Council could alter the policy to give protection to issues involving gender identity.

The council is a policy-making group of administrators, faculty and students who make recommendations to MSU's Board of Trustees. The council has been mucking around for more than a year over adding the clause.

Gender identity is essentially the "T" in LBGT (lesbian, bi, gay, transgendered). It has more to do with the gender identity a person associates with then his or her sexual orientation.

There are a lot of people on our campus who need this protection.

Essentially people don't always lose their jobs because of who they are sleeping with, but because of how they act. A man who is effeminate or a woman who is too masculine become targets for discrimination.

While we are glad that this issue might finally get passed along to the board, it's hard not to feel like the process has been overly drawn out.

For more than a year, this issue has been on the back burner because issues such as the clause's wording and our predominantly Republican Board of Trustees.

When sexual orientation was originally brought into the Anti-Discrimination Policy, it was split along political lines. Democrats with the majority overran the Republicans. With Republicans now running the show, red tape suddenly springs up everywhere.

We've already been sold on protecting people's sexual orientation, so why not finish the job?

The addition of this clause would wipe the table clean of society's stereotypes of what a person should be based on his or her gender.