Lavender Graduation for the LGBT

In today's Washington Times/Inside Politics column they mention a survey from Young America's Foundation. It notes the number of "Democratic Party officials, leftist activists, and members of the media," who were commencement speakers at this years college graduations. The tally includes former President Bill Clinton (Princeton University), Archbishop Desmond Tutu (College of William & Mary), Illinois Sen. Barack Obama (Northwestern University), retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute), Al Gore's daughter, Karenna Gore-Schiff (Columbia University). From the press: CNN's Anderson Cooper (Yale University), MSNBC's Chris Matthews (Fordham University) and the New York Times' Paul Krugman (Clark University). The roster also included self-described Marxist Gustavo Esteva (University of Vermont) and global-warming guru Ralph Cicerone (North Carolina State University). The survey also notes four universities offered separate recognition ceremonies for black students and ten offered separate ceremonies for homosexual and transgendered students. Iowa State University was one of the ten! The picture at left is from the ISU Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgendered web-site and is of the Lavender Graduation, a tradition since 1997. I checked the other two state university web-sites and found that the University of Iowa mentions a Rainbow graduation, but provides no details. It took some work to find the LGBT web-site at The University of Northern Iowa, but there was no info on graduation ceremonies. I sent an e-mail to all three institutions of higher learning (?) and asked simple questions. Why? What is the cost? Who Pays? What other groups have separate graduation ceremonies? I may be jaded, but I believe if I receive an answer it will be of the P.C. variety.