In a seemingly ominous confrontation two nights before GLAD Day, Lowell I. McGee '80, was attacked at PBH while helping clean up after a gay dance. The assailant, John A. Francis '83 was apprehended by University Police, but McGee--in a politically masterful maneuver--agreed not to press charges if Francis would publicly apologize at the upcoming GLAD Day. He did, telling 1000 students. "I guess it is just the way I was brought up. I come from a very small town with no open gay community. I've just never been exposed to it before."
GLAD Day, as it turned out, had a hidden bonus that its organizers had not expected. More than raising the "awareness" of the general Harvard community, it reassured and brought out many once-fearful gay students on campus. "GLAD Day showed the closeted gay people there were a lot of gay people out here." Flaherty says. It also clued in non-gays to the sheer number of gays on campus. And, as many students suddenly became aware that their friends were gay, they were less cavalier about telling what Schatz calls "fag jokes." After GLAD Day, GOOD organizers could go into dining halls and announce a gay rights event without having to confront 100 mocking faces or duck missiles of cafeteria food. Before GLAD Day, Schatz recalls "the grisly response" when he and others stood in dining halls to ask students to join in a protest of a screening of "Cruising," a movie that gay students believed stereotyped gays as thugs. Schatz recalls, "We would say. 'This movie encourages violence against gays and lesbians.' And people would applaud."
GLAD Day set the stage for a political crusade the following year by setting out the stereotypes and prejudices that most uninformed non-gays hold, and then gently knocking them down. Leslie Gladsjo '84, co-chair of GOOD this year, says that the gay rights movement, both nationally and at Harvard, is in the same stage as the civil rights movement in the early 60s. "We are at that very first step where we can't get people to listen to us unless they acknowledge our existence," Gladsjo says. "For that reason, GLAD is oriented toward awareness, rather than toward winning political concessions." Colantuono also sees the parallels between the gay rights struggle and the earliest moments in the awakening of Afro-American conciousness in this country. "It took Blacks a long time to realize that racism is not justified; that they were not biologically inferior, and gays are just reaching that point," he says.
Political Wins and Losses: '80-'81
Harvard students arrived in September to find in the Yard several "kiosks"--$40,000 tricornered stands for mounting posters--and a new rule banning posters elsewhere, the decision indirectly hurt the publicity efforts of GOOD and GSA, which need to put up twice as many posters as other student groups do, because anti-gay students rip down half of the gay notices. Restricting the posters to a few places seemed to guarantee that all GSA and GOOD posters would be removed. After protesting the decision without success. GSA decided to insert literature on GSA in student registration packets as several other undergraduate organizations have done in the past. But suddenly the administrators were pointing to a "policy" they had never mentioned before and that was not in writing anywhere, forbidding student organizations from including literature in the registration packet. The GSA lined up members of other student organizations who remembers having the privilege of including information in the packet to testify before CHUL, but to no avail. In a complex debate in a CHUL meeting packed with gay students, a faculty member introduced a motion to create a second registration packet to hold the literature of student groups, thereby avoiding confronting the real issue: Was the administration discriminating against gays by introducing such a policy at the seventh hour? "We were satisfied with the solution," Colantuono says. "But it didn't address the issue."
In another attempt to force the administration's hand, Colantuono introduced a proposal in CHUL asking the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to adopt a non-discrimination policy. Nine of the 11 University faculties have adopted statements asserting that they do not discriminate against gays in employment policy and admissions, or permit companies that discriminate against gays to recruit on campus. The Harvard Law School faculty alone passed without question a policy that covers all three areas, and recently enforced it by throwing Navy recruiters off campus because of its anti-gay bias. William L. Fleming, the president of the Committee on Gay and Lesbian Legal Issues, says that the Law School's willingness to guarantee against discrimination grows out of its "liberal legal perspective. A non-discrimination policy is totally in line with their dedication to basic civil rights, and they realize this. They also realize that saying we don't discriminate against gays is not the same thing as advocating homosexuality."
The Faculty Council for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, however, did not see it that way.
Claudio Guillen, professor of Comparative Literature, and the sole member of the Faculty Council to voice public support for the gay students' efforts, says that some of the Faculty Council members feared, "If we give them this non-discrimination policy, does this not amount to almost a recommendation of homosexuality?" Unfortunately, Guillen was out of the country when the Faculty Council finally voted against the gay students' proposal. "I am very sorry it did not pass," Guillen says. "The students have my very serious sympathy. They are courageous, rational and right." Paul Perkovic '71, the alumni adviser to GSA, points out that the Faculty Council members who opposed the non-discrimination policy, as well as most older administrators and faculty, grew up in an era when it was easy to believe that homosexuality did not exist, because no gays were out, on campus or elsewhere. "The feeling within Faculty Council," Perkovic, who sat in on part of the Council debates, says, "is, first, it doesn't exist and second, the less said about it, the better."
Despite a legal memorandum from Ruth Colker, outlining the lack of protection afforded gays by state and federal law, despite a list of gay student testimonies recounting incidents of harassment and physical assault, despite a large collection of defaced posters (including one that said, "Hitler was right, Gays should be exterminated."), despite private assurances from the general counsel's office that such a policy would pose no legal difficulties for the College, the Faculty Council chose to reject a flat statement of non-discrimination policy because of its "legal implications." The Council did quietly agree, however, to make permanent a temporary guarantee introduced recently by L. Fred Jewett '57, dean of admissions, promising no discrimination on the basis of sexual preference in undergraduate admissions. The Council issued instead a statement saying that it strongly opposed harassment of gay students. "We are all very disturbed to hear of the harassment," Rosenkrantz, who sits on the Faculty Council, says. "The most important thing that occurred was that we were made deeply aware of the existence of harassment," she adds.
Despite this new awareness, gay students remain unprotected by an across-the-board non-discrimination policy. Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, observes that the effort of gay students to win this right on campus mirrors the attempts gays are making at the national level "to gain a status equal with minorities." But, Epps agrees they do not yet have that status at Harvard. "That was what they were trying to achieve before the Faculty Council," he says. Before they can achieve that, Epps says, they must help nudge faculty and administration attitudes. "Developing a deeper understanding about sexual preference--that will require further education and discussion," he says, noting that the alumni plans for a foundation "could be helpful in finding a way to advance that education." But Dean Fox, who chaired the CHUL debate and sat in on the Faculty Council debates, doubts that gay student politics will have a significant influence on Faculty of administration views of homosexuality. "People's attitudes around here are the product of many years of thought. And I don't think a period of student activism will change that."
If Faculty and administrators refuse to speak publicly, in private many of them offer advice and sympathy. Gay students officers say that several professors now come to GSA meetings. "There are many of them (gay professors)," Colantuono says, "and they support us tacitly. At Harvard it is okay to be a gay professor but it requires discretion. They cannot vocally support the gay community without jepordizing their careers." At the law school, sympathetic administrators smoothed the way so that the non-discrimination policy could pass without a hitch. "Some administrators went to bat for us," Fleming says.
Other administrators and faculty who disapprove of homosexuality, and particularly of the public stance gays at Harvard recently have taken, privately create difficulties for gay students. Several gay students recall nasty inuendos and occasional taunts directed at them from instructors. One of Schatz's teachers refused to grant him extra computer time, although he had granted it to his other students, to finish a data analysis for a sociology research project on attitudes toward gays, and further told Schatz his subject was worthless. One other student remembers separate private conversations each of them had with the same high-ranking administrative official, where the official asked each student if a female junior faculty member was gay.
Gay students have pockets of sympathy elsewhere within the University. The Institute of Politics now openly regards gay politics as a subject worthy of debate in the Kennedy School forum and last year sponsored a panel on gay issues. The University Health Services (UHS) director has also listened to requests that UHS doctors treat gay students fairly. Dr. Warren E. C. Wacker, director of UHS, spoke before a GSA meeting and has taken the lead in "sensitizing" physicians and psychiatrists. Nevertheless, most counselors at UHS still regard homosexuality as an indication of psychological distress and confusion that needs treatment, several gay students say. Schatz, whose medical record includes the fact that he is gay, is now tested for venereal disease whenever he goes to UHS. "When I had water on the knee, they tested me for VD. And when I broke my arm, the doctor didn't accept my reasons. He thought it was some S&M thing," Schatz says, shaking his head sadly.
Non-gay students also have started to support openly the non-discrimination policy and, in a one-and-a-half-day blitz, 1400 students signed a "Straights for Gays" petition to the Faculty Council, calling for passage of the policy.
The Council's decision not to adopt the policy has angered gay alumni, many of whom plan to donate to the foundation as a form of protest. The alumnus who proposed the foundation, a wealthy graduate who asked not to be identified because he is not "out" to all of his associates, said that he has spoken to many angry alumni, both gay and non-gay, who regard the Faculty Council's stand as "morally indefensible." The foundation will provide money for whatever end the students wish to see fit, "just as the Friends of Crew support the crew team," he says.
Administrators who are counting on time to calm this flurry of activity are deluding themselves, gay student leaders say, pointing to the current shift of leadership from seniors to freshmen and sophomores. The current president of GSA is a sophomore and the two co-chairs of GOOD are freshmen. Gladsjo points out that because GSA had such a strong presence on campus when she was a freshman, she felt comfortable plunging into gay politics almost immediately. At the same time, changing social attitudes have made it easier for people to come out earlier in their lives, Gladsjo says, noting that she and Mark Lentzner '84 "were both out when we got to Harvard." Colantuono observes that the number of gay students who are politically active increases with each class. "There is a geometric progression--the younger they are, the more there are." Gays are also not isolated in Adams House any longer. "There is a sizeable gay community that out in Mather and North House," Colantuono says. And the administrators, even those who do not look favorably on the expansion of the overtly gay population, have been forced by the political debates and activism of the last year to recognize its existence: "It is interesting to hear Bok or Rosovsky refer to the 'gay community.' It never would have occured to them to do so a year ago," Schatz says.
Having established that gays exist at Harvard, launching the second stage--winning of equal rights--will come with time, gay students believe. "Truth is on our side," Flaherty says. "Gays are being discriminated against and eventually they will have to acknowledge it." Schatz echoes that conviction: The University will inevitably come to understand their position, Schatz says, because "we are obviously right. Everyone knows gays are discriminated against, because everybody does it. When they meet us and see we are not ogres and lechers, they have to recognize our humanity."