Lavender Graduations have now become commonplace on many colleges campuses in the United States and abroad.
But it wasn’t always that way.
The end-of-the year ceremony, which celebrates the achievements of graduating LGBTQ college students, has become a culminating experience for many of these individuals, who at times faced insurmountable challenges, including outright discrimination during their time in college, for being gay.
Next year, Lavender Graduations will mark a historic milestone as it celebrates two decades of hosting these celebratory ceremonies on college campuses, with the first taking place in 1995 at the University of Michigan.
“I am totally shocked,” says Dr. Ronni Sanlo, on the success of Lavender Graduations, which she says has now spread to more than 500 colleges and universities across the nation. “I feel this is the legacy I’ve left for higher education.”
Shortly after Sanlo arrived at the University of Michigan in 1994 as director of the school’s Office of Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Affairs, she noticed a number of African-American students dressed in their caps and gowns with colorful kente cloth in the days before the university’s main commencement ceremony.
She learned that they had their own graduation ceremony and thought that something similar was needed for LGBTQ students on campus.
