Students across Virginia are clamoring after state Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli advised public universities to scale back policies prohibiting sexual discrimination on Monday.

Though most campuses were on spring break, students flocked to Facebook to protest his comments.  The page "We Don't Want Discrimination In Our State Universities And Colleges!" gained more than 3,000 new followers Monday, and had about 6,000 by Thursday afternoon.

"I've never gotten so many e-mails from students wanting to do something," said Brandon Carroll, 21, the student government president at Virginia Tech.

At Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the few schools not on break this week, several hundred students gathered outside the student commons to demonstrate.

"We are just going to come out here and show we're not for this.  We don't want this to happen," said VCU freshman Danitza Loya.

Last Thursday, Cuccinelli wrote in a letter that the state's public schools could not legally adopt policies prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation unless directed to do so by the state legislature.  All of Virginia's state schools currently have such policies in place.

Some Cuccinelli supporters argued that his directive was a legal, rather than an ethical, issue.  Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell (R) voiced support for Cuccinelli's legal reasoning but also noted that his administration was against discrimination in all forms.

Though public universities are generally afforded autonomy from state governments when it comes to adopting such policies, Virginia's code on who makes the rules is "somewhat vague," according to Kirsten Nelson, spokeswoman for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.

There has been no word on if Virginia’s public universities are going to drop their anti-discrimination policies or change their practices because of AG Cuccinelli’s letter.

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