The environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students, staff, and faculty on college campuses has certainly improved over the last generation, but recent dramatic episodes confirm the continuing need for vigilance and reform. Students remain the constituency most vulnerable to the effects of entrenched bigotry: the harassment…

It may seem as if colleges and universities across the United States support lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) faculty, staff, and students. After all, the employer database of the Human Rights Campaign, using self-reported data, identifies 567 colleges and universities offering protection against discrimination, including 96…

Uses the teaching of "Women, Gender, Visual Culture" as an occasion to consider a blind spot within the concept of academic freedom when it appears as a singular standard: the free expression of ideas by some can be used to create a hostile climate for others. Asserts that loyalty should be bound to the principle with sustained work…

Significant obstacles stand in the way of analyzing the integration of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered (GLBT) faculty members into the U.S. professoriate. Whereas the National Center for Education Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, and other agencies collect voluminous, valuable data on race, gender, and ethnicity, few data exist for…

In December 2005, the Ford Foundation awarded Hollins University and the American Association of University Professors $10,000 to participate in the foundation's Difficult Dialogues initiative. The project supported by this grant brings together a consortium of academics, including the author, from three separate institutions in Virginia and the…

Describes the controversy and eventual success of the use of "Heaven's Coast" by Mark Doty (an account of the author's mourning of the loss of his partner Wally to AIDS) as a common text for students at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. (EV)

If one's reference point is university life a generation ago, one can say that things are getting better for gay faculty, students, administrators, and staff. College administrators need to take an activist stance to counteract misinformation about gays and cultural prejudices, and the growing problem of hate-motivated incidents. (MLW)

At most colleges and universities, fringe benefits are offered only to married faculty. Requiring marriage for benefit eligibility discriminates against all unmarried couples, homosexual or heterosexual. Resistance to providing benefits to unmarried couples is declining, but both gay and straight couples will have to lobby together for domestic…

New federal rules ("don't ask, don't tell") about service of gays and lesbians in the military services have implications for college faculty and counselors. The regulations make a number of educational, personal, and social activities risky, including seeking counseling or medical assistance and speaking from a personal viewpoint in…

The history of the controversy over Southwest Missouri State University's production of "The Normal Heart," a play about acquired immune deficiency syndrome, is chronicled and concern is expressed about the resurgence of bitterness and hatred in the debate over academic freedom, even within the academic community. (MSE)

Notes the contradiction between the growing body of academic research in gay and lesbian studies and the fact that gay and lesbian faculty members remain second-class citizens in academe as well as in American political culture. Examines such issues as political activism and academic study; discrimination in the workplace; domestic partner…

The emergence of lesbian and gay studies as legitimate academic fields has opened a political debate. Scholars face charges that their research lacks rigor; blurring of the civil rights issue by alignment with racial/ethnic minorities is another obstacle. It is argued that without administrator, faculty, and student support, these studies are at…