| A Note from the Office of Dean Leonard M. Baynes |
Pride Month is celebrated during June of each year to recognize the success, accomplishments, and societal progress of members of the LGBTQ+ community. Like many of the other heritage months, UH Law highlights the success and accomplishments of our students, graduates, faculty and staff who identify as members of this group. The LGBTQ+ community has celebrated several important recent legal victories like the Supreme Court recognition of the constitutionality of same sex marriage as well as the Supreme Court affirming that Title VII employment discrimination protections cover members of the LGBTQ+ community. Despite this progress, members of this community continue to face societal discrimination and some backsliding of their place in society. In many parts of the U.S, members of the LGBTQ+ community remain legally unprotected in housing and public accommodations, and transgender individuals continue to face a particularly challenging set of obstacles. In fact, the Human Rights Campaign, one of the leading LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in the country, declared a state of emergency this month for LGBTQ+ individuals in the United States. Through history, our nation has witnessed the courage of many members of LGBTQ+ community who stood up against intolerance and fought to be recognized and accepted for who they are. From the Stonewall uprising in 1969, the activism of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to public office in California in 1977, and countless others, the LGBTQ+ community has fought for their right to be treated with dignity and equality. The UH Law Center remains a place that recognizes, validates, and supports all members of our community no matter their background or experiences. In our first-year 2022 entering class, 13.7% of students identified as LGBTQ+. The student-run organization, OutLaw, focuses on the issues of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender students at the law school. All students are welcome to join OutLaw regardless of their sexual orientation. We also have terrific LGBTQ+ alumni. This Pride Month, I would like to recognize Donovan Olliff, a distinguished alumnus of the Law Center who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community who earned his J.D. in 2001. In 2019, Olliff was honored with an In-House Counsel Award by Missouri Lawyers Media as one of the state’s best in-house attorneys. |
Donovan Olliff (J.D. ’01) |
Olliff, whose undergraduate education centered on architecture, attended the Law Center as a part-time student. This flexibility allowed him to use his architectural expertise as a professional, while also attending law school. Since 2007, Olliff has worked, as a senior vice president, at HOK, a global design, architecture, engineering, and planning firm in St. Louis, which designed the new LaGuardia Airport. He was elevated from assistant general counsel to general counsel in 2022. I am impressed by Olliff’s accomplishments, and his career is a great example of how you can combine your undergraduate interests with the skills you obtain attending the Law Center. As legal professionals, we must continue to ensure members of the LGBTQ+ community are legally protected, and their rights are safeguarded. We must also work to change hearts and minds, for it is only through empathy and understanding that we can build a more just society. It starts in our homes, schools, and communities, by teaching acceptance and respect of people of all backgrounds. Pride Month serves as a time of celebration and camaraderie for those who celebrate, or work on being an ally to the LGBTQ+ community. Click here to see a slideshow of more Law Center leaders in the LGTBQ+ community. |
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