After weeks of bad press and even worse politics, Georgetown president John DeGioia announced the DC-based school will open a gay community center.

Georgetown Voice reports:

It took two hate crimes in as many months to make it happen, but Georgetown’s administrators have finally made a commitment to support the University’s LGBTQ community. At an open forum last night, President John DeGioia commendably announced that Georgetown will have a fully-staffed, fully-funded LGBTQ resource center by next fall. Three working groups will be created to address the creation of the resource center, the development of a better bias-reporting system and plans for LGBTQ diversity training during New Student Orientation.

In addition to the center, GU Pride will coordinate diversity training for freshman: session GU Pride president Scott Chessare calls "LGBTQ 101".

We prefer to call it progress. It would have been more progressive, of course, had DeGioia made the announcement two weeks ago, when gay activists picketed his office.

One would think Georgetown University would be on its best behavior after admitting to covering up an alleged gay bash, but apparently they haven't learned their lesson. Gay and straight activists held a conference yesterday to announce the revival of the disbanded Georgetown Unity Coalition, which reformed in the wake of Bush-family friend Philip Cooney's reported anti-gay attack.

After announcing their reformation, the Coalition planned on holding a peaceful march. Campus cops, however, weren't having it:

…We had planned to peacefully march to President DeGioia’s office to deliver him 1,000 more signatures to our petition and an “i am” t-shirt, since he came out as an ally on Tuesday in our meeting with him. As soon as a group of 30 of us started leaving Red Square, however, DPS officers began sprinting towards Healy Hall and radioed their superiors for back-up. When we arrived at Healy, we were greeted by a contingent of at least 15 DPS officers barring entrance to the building.

One Unity Coalition member was forcibly removed from the Healy steps by a DPS officer, and Unity Coalition members were aggressively confronted and yelled at by DPS officers. DPS officers were asked to explain why we were being barred entry to the building and on whose orders, and no explanation other than further yelling was given.

Students not wearing the 'i am' t-shirt were allowed to enter the hall. Georgetown's sending a clear message: stinking queers and their problems have no place on the school's campus. Vile.

DC Coppers nabbed 19-year old Georgetown student Philip Anderton Cooney for his reported role in the assault of another unidentified student.

If Cooney's name sounds familiar, you're probably thinking of his father, Phil Cooney, who worked as President Bush's crooked Environmental Quality honcho.

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• Gay Rep. Barney Frank wrote an ENDA-related guest post for The Bilerico Project.

We then began the work on passing a transgender inclusive ENDA. I was optimistic at first that we could do this, although I knew it would be hard. One of the problems I have found over the years of discussing this is an unwillingness on the part of many, including leaders in the transgender community, to acknowledge a fact: namely that there is more resistance to protection for people who are transgender than for people who are gay, lesbian and bisexual.

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