Study: Almost 25 percent of LGBT students face harassment

LGBTQ Resource Center coordinator says feeling of apathy exists on campus.

By Eric Short

Published Sept. 24, 2010

A study released last week reports nearly 1 in 4 LGBT students, faculty and staff face some type of harassment on college campuses nationwide, a rate double that of heterosexual students, faculty and staff.

The study, compiled by the nonprofit organization Campus Pride, documents more than 5,000 experiences of LGBT students, faculty and staff from colleges and universities across the country.

The study stated that even with an expanding number of cities, states and colleges revising their nondiscrimination laws and policies to include “gender identity/expression," more than a quarter of the respondents said they had experienced some sort of harassment in the past year.

Eighty-seven percent of the respondents indicated gender identity/expression as the cause of the harassment.
Campus Pride Executive Director Shane Windmeyer says the report has drawn new attention to the problem.

“This has been a wake-up call for many colleges and universities, for the reason that people have never gotten quantitative and qualitative data on LGBT students faculty and administrators,” Windmeyer said. “This will help us create the change necessary to solve this problem and improve the campus climate towards LGBT students.”

MU LGBTQ Resource Center Coordinator Ryan Black said even though the report highlights notable results, it might not change behavior on campus.

“The general feeling from students is apathetic, even if they know we exist, it's looked as something that they do not want to know," Black said. "We are looked upon as invisible."

Some LGBTQ students at MU say they do not feel safe on their own campus. Sophomore Alyx Marema said there are few places on campus where she feels comfortable.

“There was a time when me and my girlfriend were holding hands and walking down Greek Row and someone screamed out of a window, ‘Faggot!,'” she said. “Places like that and also some places downtown, I avoid so that I can avoid harassment.”

Marema said at times when she feels uncomfortable, she considers "acting straight" out of fear for her safety.

“If you want to feel safer here you have to pretend to be straighter, but that is still not good because you are not being who you are,” she said.

The report issued by Campus Pride stated that across the country more than half of college and university students try to hide their sexuality.

Triangle Coalition President Sean Jarvis said he’s lost count of how many times he has been a victim of harassment in his four years at MU.

“I stopped counting sophomore year, when the incident reporting system started, but it still goes on,” he said. “People have to try and manage where they go.”

Jarvis said he thinks there is a possibility of reducing tension between the heterosexual and LGBTQ communities at MU.

“The Chancellors Diversity Initiative, as well at the hate crime reporting system, are positive steps," he said. “It is not as broad a priority as it should be, but that is not to diminish the work that has been put in.”

Black said he hopes the campus will keep working to reduce harassment.

“The goal is that utopian idea of zero harassment," he said. "It is a goal you set up knowing that you may never achieve it, but the closer you get the better."