Tim Smith, a 1983 graduate of Baylor, has been removed from a 36-member advisory panel to the university’s Hankamer School of Business after the dean of the business school learned Smith was gay.

Smith had served on the board for five years, the Baylor Lariat, which broke the story, reported.

Smith told the newspaper he had contributed more than $65,000 to Baylor and raised more than $60,000 to establish an academic scholarship.

"To openly discriminate against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation and to do so in the name of God is simply shameful," Smith told the Lariat. "The Pharisees would be proud."

Business School Dean Terry Maness asked Smith to step down last month after learning of his sexual orientation.

“We must be sensitive to the position of our affiliated denomination, the Baptist General Convention of Texas, which has, on previous occasions, stated that a homosexual lifestyle is incompatible with most Baptist interpretations of scripture,” Maness said in a prepared statement.

Baylor made headlines in late 2003 when it revoked the scholarship of a student at the school’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary after learning he was gay.

Matthew Bass subsequently withdrew from the seminary.

He was later named in a lawsuit filed by Baylor in connection with a series of offensive e-mails that were sent to dozens of Baylor employees and their families.

This summer a Waco district judge awarded Baylor nearly $80,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees and ordered the former student, who did not attend the hearing, to refrain from sending further e-mails.