In a controversial move believed to be a first by an American college, San Jose State University President Don Kassing has suspended all campus blood drives because of a longstanding government policy that bars gay men from donating blood.
The policy by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "affecting gay men violates our non-discrimination policy," Kassing said in a lengthy e-mail sent to faculty, staff and students earlier this week.
The issue has cropped up on college campuses across the country, primarily as gay student groups protest blood drives. The American Red Cross and other national organizations that regularly run blood drives have also been pushing the FDA to revise the policy, which has been in place since AIDS first emerged in the United States in the early 1980s. State-of-the-art blood-screening techniques make the lifetime ban unnecessary, the groups say. See SJSU suspends blood drives, citing FDA ban on donations by gay men
San Jose Mercury News,
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