1) Inside Higher Ed: Equal time for ‘traditional values’
2) Associated Press; Lesbian ex-cadet giving up West Point fight
3) WKSU (Kent State University); Three printers refuse Kent State gay community magazine
4) BET; HBCU Summit Puts Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Issues on the Table
1) Equal Time for ‘traditional values’
Scott Jaschik April 26th
The Texas House of Representatives has passed a budget bill that would require any public college with a student centre on “alternative” sexuality to provide equal funding to create new centres to promote “traditional values”.
While the Senate has yet to adopt a version of the budget bill, the inclusion of the measure in the overall budget bill and the dominance of social conservatives in Texas politics means that the measure could well be enacted. The House vote in favour of the amendment on the campus sexuality centres was 110:24.
Many Texas public colleges – as is the case at many colleges elsewhere – have centres within student affairs departments that serve gay and lesbian students. These centres sponsor programming, refer students who need counselling or support groups, and serve as advocates for gay and lesbian students on their campuses.
Representative Wayne Christian, a Republican, proposed the amendment, which would apply to any public colleges with a centre “for students focused on gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, transsexual, transgender, gender questioning, or other gender identity issues”. According to The Dallas Morning News, lawmakers “cracked jokes and guffawed” during debate, with one representative asking Christian what “pansexual” means. Christian urged the lawmaker to visit the centres at the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M University to find out.
Lawmakers supporting the bill have said that they favour only equal time for all kinds of sexuality.
But the Young Conservatives of Texas, a group that worked with Christian on the legislation, did so with the hope that public colleges would respond to a law, if the bill passes, by ending support for existing centres. Tony McDonald, senior vice chairman of the group and a law student at UT Austin, said in an interview that “we could try to get these groups defunded” in a law, but that the equal funding approach was viewed as more likely to pass (perhaps with the same impact).
McDonald said that he doesn’t believe that universities should be funding centres on any sexuality or values – traditional or otherwise. He said that students “who want to promote a homosexual lifestyle” can do so “on their own time and with their own money”.
Requiring the creation of traditional values centres would “give the Left a taste of its own medicine”, he said. He charged that these centres “are encouraging folks who consider themselves homosexuals to go on considering themselves as such. That’s the point of the centres, and that’s not something Texas taxpayers should spend their money on.”
While supporters of the centres have said that they are needed to provide support for students who are in a minority on campus, McDonald said that it is actually traditional students who lack power. “If I were to walk through UT law school with a shirt on that said, ‘Homosexuality is immoral’, if I were to do that, there would be an uproar. People would be upset, and it would be considered out of place and not acceptable to do that. I’d probably get a talking-to. But if you go through campus to promote homosexuality, that is the norm.”
While McDonald said he hoped that, if the bill is enacted, public colleges would eliminate existing sexuality centres, he said that there are good programmes that could be sponsored by a traditional values centre. He said that they might offer programmes to encourage chastity or marriage between male and female students, for example.
The budget measure is prompting derision from Texas liberals. A column in The Texas Observerbegan this way: “Imagine the plight of the heterosexual student stepping on to a college campus for the first time. How will he fit in? Should he tell his new roommate about his alternative hetero lifestyle? Will he be bullied, just like he was in high school, where he was mercilessly teased for being a sexual deviant? Where does a straight person turn?”
While centres in Texas await the outcome of the budget bill, the debate has already accelerated at Texas A&M University, where the leadership of the Student Senate is pushing the university to go on record by saying that it would not increase student fees to create traditional values centres, but would cut the existing Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center in half to finance a new centre. In debate over the issue, advocates for traditional values centres said that straight students who may be questioning their sexuality need a centre just as much as gay students do. Students said it was important to create “an equal playing field” for those who may disagree with the gay centre. (The discussion may be viewed here, starting about 1 hour and 45 minutes into the meeting.)
Lowell Kane, programme coordinator for the gay centre at Texas A&M, said that he could not comment on the state legislation. But he said it was hard for him to accept the idea that gay students somehow have it better than their straight counterparts because of the centre at Texas A&M or elsewhere. He noted that in various surveys of gay students about how welcoming the university is, Texas A&M does not do well.
“I’m sure that there are instances where an individual heterosexual person might feel oppressed,” he said, “and that’s wrong.” But it's also not the norm, he added. “What we are talking about is the difference between an individual instance and societal homophobia.”
“If you walk into any campus classroom or student health service, most of what you find is geared toward a heterosexual population and not a GLBT population,” Kane said. Noting the suicide last year of Tyler Clementi, a student at Rutgers University, Kane said, “I have never heard of any student who took their life because their college roommate outed them as being a heterosexual student.”
And turning to comments from students at Texas A&M, he added, “I have never had a student complain that someone comes up and out of the blue calls them a ‘hetero’ and slaps them, but that happens to my students, who are called ‘dyke’ and ‘fag’.”
2) Lesbian ex-cadet giving up West Point fight
April 29 2011
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — A lesbian former cadet who left West Point saying she couldn't live a lie was rejected for re-admission Wednesday because of the lingering military ban on gays and said she is giving up on her dream of graduating from the academy.
Katherine Miller said in a statement that she plans to graduate from Yale University, which she's now attending, and join the military through officer candidate school.
"Although I am deeply saddened that I will not be readmitted to West Point, I understand and respect the decision," said the 21-year-old from Findlay, Ohio.
She said that although she had always wanted to serve alongside her comrades as an equal, "I harbor no resentment toward the military, and I look forward to the day they deem it appropriate for me to put the uniform back on."
Miller left West Point last year and soon became a public face of the effort to repeal the policy known as "don't ask, don't tell," or DADT, which bars gays and lesbians from serving openly. But she missed the storied upstate New York academy and applied as the government moved to repeal.
In announcing Miller's rejection, West Point issued a statement explaining that it couldn't accept Miller because of the still-existing ban but hinting that re-entry wouldn't be a problem for her in the future.
"While at the academy Ms. Miller remained in good standing and had done exceptionally well academically, militarily and physically," said Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, director of public affairs at West Point. "The choice to seek re-admission is available to her once the repeal process is completed."
Still, the decision highlights activists' complaints that the Department of Defense's too-deliberate process is holding things up for gays and lesbians who want to serve.
"For every day the clock ticks, investigations under DADT continue, and service members remain at risk," said the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which offers legal counsel to gay and lesbian military members.
It's supposed to be a done deal 60 days after the president and senior defense advisers certify that the repeal won't hurt troops' ability to fight. It could go into full effect by late summer or early fall, by some estimates.
That's too late for Miller — but not for cadets who want to apply to start classes in 2012 at the four U.S. military academies: West Point; the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn.; the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.; and the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Alexander Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, an organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans, said openly gay applicants could not be sure the policy would be repealed by the start of classes — for West Point, Aug. 15.
"I just don't envision that first cadre of new cadets going in this year who would think, 'I'm not going to have to live under the cloud of don't ask, don't tell,'" Nicholson said. "I think that will come next year."
Miller has said she enjoyed attending the historic academy looming over the Hudson River. She also thrived there, ranking ninth in her class when she left.
But she said keeping her sexuality a secret violated the academy's honor code and nagged at her conscience. It was difficult for her to remain silent, she said, when her fellow cadets made derogatory comments about gays.
"I couldn't work up the courage to foster an argument against what they were saying for fear of being targeted as a gay myself," Miller told The Associated Press in an interview late last year. "I had to be silent. That's not what I wanted to become."
She filed her resignation in August 2010, just as she was to begin her junior year. She was accepted to Yale but re-applied late last year.
"Don't ask, don't tell" was implemented under President Bill Clinton and requires service members to keep their sexual orientation a secret and their colleagues not to inquire about it.
Clinton had wanted to repeal the ban entirely, but the military and many in Congress argued that doing so would disrupt order in the ranks and threaten morale.
Servicemembers United recently installed on its website a countdown clock marking the time elapsed since President Barack Obama signed the repeal. Nicholson, its director, said he didn't think there was any ill will behind West Point's decision.
"I think that should be expected from West Point," said Nicholson. "I think their hands are tied."
Training for service members on changes related to the repeal began around March 1 and could be finished by summer's end.
The Air Force Academy indicated that it was operating under the same rules as West Point.
"It remains the policy of the Department of Defense not to ask service members or applicants about their sexual orientation, to treat all members with dignity and respect and to ensure maintenance of good order and discipline," said spokesman Lt. Col. John N. Bryan. "And we will continue to follow the law."
Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers David Crary in New York, Dan Elliott in Denver and John Christoffersen in New Haven, Conn.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
3) Three printers refuse Kent State gay community magazine
Alison Ritchie April 28 2011
| Kent State University’s gay community magazine has found a new printer after three others refused to publish the latest edition. Last week, Fusion’s usual printer asked the magazine to remove explicit language and a photo. The photo shows a fully clothed man with his genitalia emphasized. Editors refused to make the changes, and they then approached Hess Print Solutions in Brimfield. But its Chief Financial Officer Fred Cooper says he had similar concerns. |
| Cooper says if editors were willing to make changes, Hess would have printed the magazine. But Fusion’s editor Raytevia Evans says the explicit language is necessary. Fusion was refused by a third printer, before finding one that agreed to print the content, including the photo and headline. Evans says the change in printers cost the magazine more than two-thousand dollars, because publication had to be expedited. |
4) HBCU Summit Puts Gay, Lesbian, and Transgender Issues on the Table
Hortense Barber April 29th 2011
Still considered a taboo subject on many Black college campuses, a summit taking place Friday at Atlanta HBCU Spelman College seeks to open the dialogue on gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender issues.
The conference, titled “Facilitating Campus Climates of Pluralism, Inclusivity, and Progressive Change at HBCUs,” is the first of its kind. Participants came from nine HBCUs to attend several panel discussions throughout the day on campus about LGBT communities and ways to create a more open climate at school for those who have alternative lifestyles.
“We hope that [the summit] will provide some leadership for HBCUs to address LGBT issues as it relates to students, faculty and staff,” said Dr. Beverly Guy-Sheftall, the founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman. “We think that the public awareness will put the issue on the radar.”
Black colleges as a whole have been slower to take on this public dialogue on lesbian and gay issues for a few reasons.
“Some [schools] were founded with religious affiliation,” Guy-Sheftall explained. In addition, the relative silence on the issue seems to mirror the Black community’s attitude as a whole. “Black colleges are not different from African-American communities in general.”
One recent issue related to LGBT issues on HBCU campuses stands out. In 2009, Morehouse College, one of the summit participants, established a controversial dress code, which banned students at the all-male institution from wearing clothing “associated with women’s garb (dresses, tunics, purses, pumps, etc.)” on the campus.
Guy-Sheftall says she’s seen other campuses have issues surrounding dress code. “But the biggest issue we’re facing on our campuses is [the lack of] open public dialogue,” she said. The suicide last year by a gay Rutgers University student, who jumped off a bridge last September after his sexual encounter with another man was streamed live unbeknownst to him, made the project more urgent, she continued, and the hope is to tackle intolerance on HBCU campuses, before it reaches that point.
Besides Spelman, the other participating colleges include: Bennett College of Women, Howard University, Clark Atlanta University, Southern University, North Carolina Central University, Philander Smith College, Morehouse College and Morgan State University. Organizers chose schools that ranged in size, region and had active LGBT student organizations on their campuses. Every HBCU will receive a 300-page packet of recommendations following the summit promoting course offerings, staff training and campus activities.
The summit was funded by a grant Spelman received three years ago from the Arcus Foundation, a group that works in part to advance LGBT equality. The grant runs out this year, but the school hopes to continue similar projects through partnerships with the United Negro College Fund and the Human Rights Campaign.
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