Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 06:57:10 -0800
From: jessea@uclink2.berkeley.edu (Jessea Greenman)
Subject: Executive Summary of "In Every Classroom," 

Executive Summary of "In Every Classroom," The Report of the President's 
Select Committee for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, the State University of New
Jersey-RUTGERS.

This excellent document, issued in 1989, lays out a fine blueprint for what
is needed in an educational setting and is applicable conceptually to
educational institutions at all levels.  The document is 107 pages in
length and may still be obtainable from the President's Select Committee
for Lesbian and Gay Concerns, Rutgers, the State University, 301 Van Nest
Hall, Old Queens (sic) Campus, New Brunswick, NJ 08903.  201-932-7255.  It
used to cost $10.  They also produced a video called "A Little Respect:
Lesbian and Gay Students on Campus."

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Rutgers University President Edward J. Bloustein announced the creation of
his Select Committee for Lesbian and Gay Concerns on February 3, 1988.  The
Committee  is part of the University's larger commitment to combatting
prejudice and encouraging respect for diversity, known as the Program to
Advance Our Common Purposes.  The Select Committee was created in response
to recommendations made by lesbian and gay students and the Rutgers Sexual
Orientation Survey completed under the direction of Dr. Susan Cavin.  Both
the students and the survey [see Appendices D and J] documented a
homophobic atmosphere that the survey's report described as "a vicious,
sometimes violent underside to life here at Rutgers."

Chaired by Dean James D. Anderson, the Select Committee is composed of 29
members, including faculty, students, administrators, and alumni.  The
Committee organized itself into 9 task groups and held a total of 71
meetings on the Camden, Newark, New Brunswick, and Piscataway campuses,
including 3 Open Forums.  In addition to the Cavin study, four other
surveys were completed: a lesbian and gay student needs assessment survey,;
a survey of all faculty and staff on work environment and curricular
issues; a survey of campus resources and programs available for lesbian and
gay students; and a national survey of lesbian and gay programs and
projects underway at other colleges and universities.

The Select Committee for Lesbian and Gay Concerns examined a number of
areas where the University routinely interacts with students, faculty, and
staff in ways which significantly affect the quality of their personal
lives, their education, and their work.  The Committee examined areas where
heterosexism is currently institutionalized, and areas where homophobia,
anti-gay violence and discrimination can be aggressively combatted.  Our
recommendations are made with the assumption that heterosexism and
homophobia, like racism and sexism, are long-term problems which demand
long-term solutions.  As a result many of our recommendations are designed
to be implemented over a period of time.  However, some key recommendations
need urgent action if the University is seriously to oppose and tackle
bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination against lesbian and gay people.  The
following overview summarizes the most pressing recommendations, those
recommendations which the members of the Select Committee for Lesbian and
Gay Concerns feel need the most immediate and serious action.


GOALS OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE
The Select Committee's work has been guided by four goals or assumptions. 
They represent the spirit of our work and have guided the drafting of our
recommendations.  We hope they will guide the implementation and refinement
of our recommendations as well.

First and most important, [what follows is in bold lettering] the
University must ensure an environment in which all members our of community
[end bold], including lesbian and gay students, [resume bold] are able to
participate and develop intellectually and emotionally, free from fear,
violence, or harassment. [end bold]  For most students, college is a time
of self-exploration, a time when personal identity and independence are
solidified and asserted.  For lesbian and gay students it is too often a
period of personal turmoil and isolation as they come face to face in their
daily lives with the ugliness of homophobia and heterosexism.  Since a
primary mission of the university is to educate its students, it is
critical to provide them with the chance to grow and learn in a safe
environment free of homophobia and heterosexism.  No one--of whatever race,
gender, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, age, physical ability,
or [italicized] sexual orientation--should be subjected to physical threats
or abuse, academic depreciation or intellectual derision, or to treatment
which deprives them of their dignity and humanity.  Any community which
does not aggressively work to protect its members from the physical,
emotional, and intellectual ravages of bigotry and prejudice is a community
for which freedom of expression and intellectual integrity are a farce.

Second, [begin bold] the university needs to promote a respect for
diversity among all its members. [end bold]  It must combat homophobia and
heterosexism as an essential part of that effort.  Both the bigot and the
bigot's prey are injured by prejudice and hate.  Both parties lose the
opportunity to participate in honest discussion; neither can share their
knowledge and insight; everyone's growth and richness of experience is
stunted.  The bigot's hate is exhausting and depleting for everyone; as
Frederick Douglass said "Slavery enslaves the slavemaster as well."  A
truly exciting intellectual environment is one which celebrates its own
diversity and rich complexity, not one which sulks in fear of what it
cannot easily understand or what it cannot conquer and make its own.

Third, [begin bold] the university must ensure equitable and fair treatment
for all members of the Rutgers community [end bold]--students, faculty,
staff, administrators, alumni, and their families.  Equity is a central
tenet of the American creed, enshrined in our nation's founding documents. 
Fairness needs to be understood within the context of the diversity and
difference which currently exists within our communities. What is often
seen as offering the same benefit or service equally to all members of the
community may actually be  exclusionary when viewed from the perspective of
one part of our diverse world.  For the university to offer all married
couples spousal benefits and claim equality of treatment is to disavow the
existence and ignore the history of lesbians and gays who are denied the
legal option of marriage in all countries but Denmark.

Finally, [begin bold], the university needs to encourage research and
scholarly debate in the areas of lesbian and gay studies. [end bold] 
Society needs to understand why the assumption of heterosexuality is so
pervasive and firmly rooted in our thought [footnote citation to Adrienne
Rich, "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence," Signs, 5 (1980),
631-660.]  and why all forms of same-sex intimacy are so frightening and
threatening to so many people.  Solving the problems of bigotry will
require thorough research and serious scholarship.  If lesbian and gay
people are to become full participants in public life, society must be
always allowed to discover the contributions that lesbians and gays have
made to science, history, literature, and art; they need creative research
which allows them to recover and create the science, history, literature,
and art which is their own. 

FIVE FUNDAMENTAL OBJECTIVE FOR RUTGERS

The Select Committee sees five objectives as central to accomplishing its
goals.  After examining the research and surveys we commissioned, after
participating in a University-wide dialogue and numerous meetings, we
believe that these objectives provide the best strategy for implementing
the principles just outlined. The following five objectives deserve the
immediate attention of the University:

[begin bold] 1.  The establishment of an Office for Lesbian and Gay
Concerns with at least one full-time staff person.[end bold]  A central
University Office provided with staff and resources and advised by a
committee of faculty, staff, students, and alumnae/i is needed to provide a
visible, prominent focus for the long-term work of implementing this
report's recommendations. Someone is needed to act as a voice for the issue
who is undistracted by other necessary concerns and complicated problems
which currently confront university administrators; at least one person
needs to have ultimate responsibility for responding to specific problems
or incidents.  At present, responsibility for combatting homophobia is
shared by everyone and held by no one.  A full-time coordinator would act
as a gentle reminder of what needs to be done, what hasn't been done, and
what should be done.  Also, a professional is needed with the skills,
expertise, and time to serve as a clearinghouse for effective strategies
and creative programs for change and to prevent duplication of efforts
across the university.

[begin bold] The creation of incentives for the integration of the "new
curriculums." [end bold]  Scholarship and learning are expanding as new
social groups with new experiences, different cultures, and unexplored
histories take their place in our public life.  Some of the most exciting
and innovative scholarship, especially at Rutgers, is interdisciplinary
work taking place within such new arenas as women's studies, Africana
studies, American studies, and lesbian and gay studies.  These emerging
areas of scholarship, these "new disciplines," need to be better integrated
in our existing teaching curricula and our standard pedagogy.

This can only be done through the allocation of new resources by the
university to support and encourage the development of "new curriculums"
that are inclusive of not just the lesbian and gay experience, but also of
other underrepresented groups.  Incentives, such as release time or rewards
in the tenure and promotion process, must be created so that faculty
members who take time from their current teaching, research, and service to
revise the curriculum they teach are not penalized in the tenure and
promotion process.  Faculty members who are doing creative research in
these areas and who are developing inclusive curriculums need to be
provided forums, such as discipline-based colloquia, for sharing these
advances with their colleagues.

The inclusion of lesbian and gay people in the intellectual discourses of
the classroom is crucial to combating homophobia and heterosexism, since it
demonstrates the intellectual and academic legitimacy which lesbian gay
issues deserve.

[begin bold] 3.  Combating homophobia through distinct, tailored
sensitivity programs. [end bold]  We must develop programs and educational
activities in a variety of formats on homosexuality, lesbianism,
bisexuality, and heterosexism on all campuses, particularly for new
students during orientation; for students in residence halls, fraternities
and sororities; and for faculty, administrators, and staff, especially in
such areas as health care, campus security, residence life, and
counseling--the entire student life area in general.

Anti-homophobia education and training can be integrated into existing
anti-bias activities throughout the university, especially as they relate
to other forms of prejudice such as racism, sexism, xenophobia, and
prejudice directed towards members of religious or national groups.

[begin bold] 4.  The creation of safe space. [end bold]  All public space
at the university should be safe space free of racist, sexist,
anti-Semitic, and homophobic bigotry. This is an ambitious project which
will take many years to achieve.  However, until the time arrives when two
women or two men can safely walk arm in arm through campus and show their
affection for each other publicly, as so many opposite-sex friends do, we
need to create a safe space where lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and their
friends can interact and develop supportive communities.  We need to
protect the vulnerable for now.  We are not suggesting the creation of an
exclusive space, just space free from harassment and hostility.

[begin bold] 5. Ensure equity in access to benefits and services.  [end
bold] Currently lesbians and gays are denied access to benefits and
services which are in principle said to be supplied to all employees. The
most egregious and serious example of this exclusion is in the area of
employee health benefits. Until the university provides equal health
insurance benefits to the domestic partners and children of lesbian and gay
employees it is not meeting the requirements of its own nondiscrimination
policy.


[End Executive Summary]

]
Information on this resource is provided as an organizing tool by Project
21, GLAAD/SFBA, 1360 Mission #200, San Francisco CA 94103; 415-861-2244.
Project 21 is a national campaign of curriculum and educational policy
advocacy for equity in public education.
Jessea Greenman <jessea@uclink2.berkeley.edu>
Co-Chair, Project 21, GLAAD/SFBA
1360 Mission #200, San Francisco CA 94103
ph/fax @ home: 510-601-8883