Lavender Recognition Ceremony May 14

The fourth annual Lavender Recognition Ceremony will take place at 3 p.m. Wednesday, May 14, in College Hall on the South 40 area of Washington University in St. Louis’ Danforth Campus.

Co-hosted by LGBT Student Involvement and Leadership and the Social Justice Center, the ceremony honors the achievements and contributions of graduating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer students and their allies.

Lavender recognition ceremonies originated in 1995 at the University of Michigan and were created by Ronni Sanlo, EdD, then director of Michigan’s Office of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Affairs.

The color lavender is important in LGBT history. It is a combination of the pink triangle that gay men were forced to wear in concentration camps and the black triangle designating lesbians as political prisoners in Nazi Germany. The LGBT civil rights movement took these symbols of hatred and combined them to make symbols and a color of pride and community.

WUSTL’s Lavender Recognition Ceremony will include an introduction by keynote speaker Trevor A. Dawes, associate university librarian. Remarks by students Matt Viggiano and Jesse Yang will follow the keynote address.

Jill Carnaghi, PhD, associate vice chancellor for students and dean of campus life, and Georgia Binnington, associate dean of students at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, will present lavender honor cords to seniors who identify as LGBT or as an ally to the LGBT community.

A reception will follow the event. To register for the ceremony, visit here. For more information, email lgbt@wustl.edu.