Former DEI director at Providence College files discrimination charge - The Boston Globe (2024)

In the charge of discrimination filing, Kole, who is nonbinary, said they had filed complaints with Providence College’s Human Resources department, claiming violations of Title IX’s rules around gender discrimination and retaliation. The college, they alleged, “failed to act promptly by taking measures reasonable designed to protect” Kole from “further mistreatment.” Kole said they resigned “due to ongoing harassment and bullying.”

“Providence College has been given multiple chances to address my client’s complaints of discrimination,” Daigle told the Globe. Filing a discrimination charge “is the only remaining means available to E. Corry Kole to obtain justice,” he said.

While the commission has the authority to award monetary compensation for the harm employers have caused, Kole “seeks something more important — institutional change,” Daigle added.

Kole was hired at the private Catholic institution in 2020 as a resource coordinator in the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They were promoted to director in 2022.

In the charge of discrimination, which was obtained by the Globe, Daigle wrote that Kole created a committee tasked with defining Providence College’s theological position on LGBTQ+ inclusion and designing the institution’s process for responding to LGBTQ+ issues. During a committee meeting to discuss the members’ bios for the college’s website, Kole proposed a bio that began: “I exist in the intersections between Christian and Queer, identifying with both the LGBTQ+ community and having been a campus minister through lnterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA, and a preacher, leader and trainer in the local church for the past decade.”

But according to the complaint, when Kole submitted their staff bio, they were told, “You are too liberal for this college. You cannot identify as queer.” The complaint does not disclose who made the statement to Kole.

During the 2022-2023 academic year, Kole began their personal transition as trans-nonbinary, and began to disclose their pronouns as “they/them,” the complaint alleged. When Kole shared this information with Pam Tremblay, the associate vice president of mission integration, in June 2023, Tremblay allegedly said, “the Friars are not going to like that. Could you use she/her pronouns in front of the room, but they/them pronouns privately?”

Kole alleged they began suffering from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder “so severe that they eventually took medical leave under the Family Medical Leave Act” due to “the mistreatment they suffered.” When they returned to work at the college in the fall of 2023, they were told to remove their name from public-facing materials. They also found that their name had been removed from projects they had been responsible for, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, Tremblay allegedly told Kole that Kole had been replaced on the DEI team while on leave “and are happy to move forward in this way.” The college’s vice president for institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion, Quincy A. Bevely, allegedly told Kole that they would have to make up for their FMLA leave, criticized their work schedule, and removed previously set accommodations for Kole’s need for child care. Daigle said these actions were “clear violation(s) of FMLA’s requirements.”

Tremblay and Bevely did not respond to requests from the Globe seeking comment.

In an emailed statement to the Globe, Providence College spokesman Steven Maurano said the institution had not yet reviewed the formal charge as of Monday afternoon. ”But we look forward to addressing unsubstantiated claims of discrimination,” wrote Maurano.

It’s unclear how long the state’s human rights commission may take to investigate Kole’s claims. A spokesperson for the commission could not be immediately reached for comment.

Tensions between Providence College’s Catholic administration and its diverse student body have reached a boiling point this year.

Shortly after Kole resigned from the college, hundreds of students, staff members, and alumni signed an open letter calling for LGBTQ+ justice, claiming that Kole left the post “after senior leadership at the college thwarted their efforts to fulfill their job description.”

The letter, which was first published in the campus’ student newspaper on March 18, also accused the college of failing to protect LGBTQ+ individuals, claimed that community members cannot say the word “pride” on campus when discussing sexuality and gender, and claimed that the Pride flag has been prohibited from campus.

“If Providence College desires to be a respectable accredited university known for equal treatment of all students, staff, and faculty, it must reckon with its discriminatory practices toward its LGBTQ+ community members,” read the letter, which was addressed to Rev. Kenneth R. Sicard, the college’s president. “There is no ‘Veritas’ in preaching inclusivity while simultaneously discriminating against the very people the college invites onto campus, as partners in our collective mission.”

The internal frustrations at Providence College reflect the strain among Catholics, even as the Vatican has recently taken steps to make the Catholic Church a more welcoming place for the LGBTQ+ community.

In late 2020, Pope Francis made history when he publicly expressed support for same-sex civil unions, and has since allowed pastoral blessings for same-sex relationships. But in Rhode Island, former Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin disagreed, and said the Pope’s statements “clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions.”

Tobin, who has since retired, said the church “cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships.”

In response to the March 18 letter, Sicard issued a lengthy statement earlier this month, which said the school’s “shared commitment” is to “becoming more long, just, and equitable — even as today’s rapidly secularizing age” challenges the Catholic Church’s “understanding of the human person and human sexuality.”

“For some, questions about sex and gender take on the significance of adjudicating whether Providence College is still committed to its Catholic identity,” said Sicard in his statement. “When this happens, members of our community who identify as LGBTQ are often made to shoulder the burdens of these challenges, unfairly caught up in controversial questions about institutional fidelity to our Catholic and Dominican mission and identity.

“This is wrong and it is unjust to our LGBTQ community members,” added Sicard.

Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.