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JNU Mulls Giving Extra Points To Transgender Students Seeking Admission

JNU Gears Up To Become More Inclusive, Mulls Giving Extra Points To Transgender Applicants

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In a bid to make its campus more inclusive, Jawaharlal Nehru University is considering giving extra points to transgender students who apply for admission. According to a report on The Indian Express, a committee was formed in the university in the beginning of 2015 to formulate a process of giving extra 'deprivation points' to students of various marginalised groups.

Ajay Kumar Patnaik, a professor who is a part of the committee told IE, "We have proposed four deprivation points for transgender students, among others. But there is still some debate on whether it should be four or five points. If the Council passes the proposal, it will be implemented from the next academic session."

This is one of the various comprehensive steps that JNU has taken to make the institution gender sensitive. In October 2015, the university came up with a multi-gender symbol for it's anti-sexual harassment cell. Initially, it has the man-woman binary as its symbol. IE reports that previously, the university had a symbol that 'showed a woman’s outline on the left and a man’s outline on the right with an equality sign in between'.

"We were mulling the change for a long time since we thought the logo which has been in use since 1997 was inadequate in symbolising all genders. The continuous circle is supposed to signify all other genders which can’t be quantified or qualified. It breaks the watertight compartmentalisation of gender and reinstates fluidity and dynamism in gender perspectives," a member of the Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH) had told the paper.

JNU is also home to Dhanak, a group that has been formed to promote gender sensitisation in the campus.

In 2013, the university saw the first gay candidate fighting the student elections.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.