Sexual minority students on college/university campuses encounter unique challenges because of how they are perceived and treated as a result of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The challenges faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students may prevent them from achieving their full academic potential or participating fully in the campus community. Similarly, other campus community members, including LGBT faculty, staff and administrators, may also suffer as a result of the same prejudices, limiting their ability to achieve their career goals and to mentor or support students. What are the specific challenges facing LGBT people on campus and how are institutions of higher education addressing these challenges? These questions will be explored in this article.

The hostile environment that LGBT students, faculty, staff and administrators often experience has been documented in numerous studies since the mid-1980s (see Rankin, 1998 for a review). Many LGBT campus members find that they must hide significant parts of their identity from peers and others, thereby isolating themselves socially or emotionally. Those who do not to hide their sexual orientation or gender identity have a range of experiences including discrimination, verbal or physical harassment, and subtle or outright silencing of their sexual identities. While higher education provides a variety of opportunities for students and others, these are greatly limited for those who fear for their safety when they walk on campus, or feel they must censor themselves in the classroom, or are so distracted by harassing remarks that they are unable to concentrate on their studies, or are fearful every time they walk into a public restroom that they will be told to leave.

In a more recent investigation, nearly 1700 self-identified LGBT students, faculty, and staff (Rankin, 2003) suggest that the campus community is not an empowering place for LGBT people and that anti-LGBT intolerance and harassment are prevalent. A heterosexist climate inhibits the acknowledgment and expression of LGBT perspectives. It also limits curricular initiatives and research efforts, as seen in the lack of LGBT content in university course offerings. Furthermore, the contributions and concerns of LGBT people have often remained unrecognized. The research findings indicate that within the past year (the study was conducted in 2001-2002): More than one-third (36%) of LGBT undergraduate students and nineteen percent of LGBT faculty & staff have experienced harassment.

 Derogatory remarks were the most common form of harassment (89%).

Seventy-nine percent of those harassed identified students as the source of the harassment.

Twenty percent of the respondents feared for their physical safety because of their sexual orientation/gender identity, and fifty-one percent concealed their sexual orientation/gender identity to avoid intimidation.

 Respondents felt that LGBT people were likely to be harassed on campus. Seventy-one percent felt that transgender people were likely to suffer harassment, and sixty-one percent felt that gay men and lesbians were likely to be harassed.

Forty-three percent of the respondents rated the overall campus climate as homophobic.

Forty-one percent of the respondents stated that their college/university was not addressing issues related to sexual orientation/gender identity.

Forty-three percent of the participants felt that the curriculum did not represent the contributions of LGBT people.

The research further suggests that LGBT people of color were more likely than white LGBT people to conceal their sexual orientation or gender identity to avoid harassment. Many respondents said they did not feel comfortable being out in predominantly straight people of color venues, but felt out of place at predominantly white LGBT settings. Additionally, while the same proportion of non-transgender LGB men and women (28%) reported experiencing harassment, a significantly higher proportion of transgender respondents (41%) reported experiences of harassment.

Several colleges and universities, aware of the challenges facing LGBT members of their communities, and understanding their responsibility to provide a safe educational environment for all community members, initiated structural changes, for example, creating LGBT resource centers and LGBT studies programs. In addition, many have revised or created LGBT-inclusive administrative policies, such as domestic partner benefits and nondiscrimination policies.

To successfully address the challenges facing LGBT people on campus, there must be a shift of basic assumptions, premises and beliefs in all areas of the institution -only then can behavior and structures be changed. In the transformed institution, heterosexist assumptions are replaced by assumptions of diverse sexualities and relationships, and these new assumptions govern the design and implementation of any activity, program or service of the institution. This sort of transformative change demands committed leadership in both policy and goal articulation.

New approaches to learning, teaching, decision-making and working in the institution are implemented. It will demand the formation of relationships between individuals who are radically different from each other. These transformed assumptions, premises and beliefs will provide the environment with the catalyst for change. I am not only interested and involved in analysis regarding issues of difference, but in praxis, the organizational activities and actions that challenge dominance, critique the status quo and have social justice as a central core value, that inform the strategic approach that runs through the fabric of an organization.

It is recommended that the first step in transforming the campus climate is to conduct a climate assessment to determine the challenges facing LGBT people. Rankin (2001) proposes one paradigm that takes into account five main aspects of campus culture (access and retention, research and scholarship, inter-group and intra-group relations, curriculum and pedagogy and university commitment/service), and is designed to assist the campus community in maximizing LGBT equity through the use of assessment tools and specific intervention strategies.

In contrast, some argue that rather than focusing exclusively on “surface level issues”—for example, faculty appointments, an inclusive curriculum, an LGBT-friendly environment, etc.—that “structures need to be disrupted.”(Tierney & Dilley, 1996) “If one assumes that the structures of knowledge in part have defined normalized relations that have excluded homosexuals, then one needs to break those structures rather than merely reinvent the. Some suggested methods of disrupting structures include: creating centers for interdisciplinary study and cross-cultural teaching and learning—inclusive of LGBT issues—that offer the necessary bases for education and scholarship that does not take place in existing departments; supporting active, collaborative learning that is concerned with enabling students to come to grips with their own realities; reconfiguring the classroom, for example, by encouraging students to assist in developing or changing the syllabus at the start of and during the semester.

The articulation by participants of institutional actions that they feel would help improve campus climate for LGBT people are offered in Rankin (2003). While not an exhaustive list, the recommendations provide a starting point for policy makers and program planners to maximize LGBT equity on campus. Some of the recommendations include:

1. Include sexual orientation and gender identity or expression in the institution’s non-discrimination clause.
2. Extend employee spousal benefits to domestic partners (health insurance, tuition remission, sick and bereavement leave, use of campus facilities, child care services, comparable retirement plans).
3. Provide single stall gender-neutral restroom facilities.
4. Integrate LGBT concerns into university documents/publications (grievance procedure, housing guidelines, application materials).
5. Create a documentation form in police services for reporting hate crimes committed against LGBT people.
6. Respond visibly and expeditiously to acts of intolerance directed at LGBT members of the community.
7. Create a LGBT studies center or department.
8. Expand LGBT-related library holdings.
9. Promote the use of inclusive language in the classroom (for example, create a pamphlet with examples of heterosexist assumptions and language with suggested alternatives).
10. Include sexual orientation and gender identity issues in new student orientation programs.
11. Create an office for LGBT concerns. A written plan inclusive of the recommended actions should be created including time-lines, resources (both human and fiscal), people responsible for the implementation of the recommendations, and a system of accountability. As more and more universities institute these strategies, it is advisable that they also conduct surveys and other fact-finding research before and after implementation to better understand the efficacy of the initiatives within their community and what other changes might be necessary.

Furthermore, a future study looking at the same institutions as this investigation would be valuable in providing comparative data and greater understanding of the long-term effects and success rates of these programs, as it is likely that not all initiatives’ results are immediately apparent. As we move forward, it is clear from the results of this study that even institutions that have begun to create LGBT-inclusive policies and LGBT-specific programs will need to continue and expand these efforts in order to ensure full participation of LGBT individuals in the campus community. Only then will institutions of higher education be able to achieve their goal of “creating inclusive educational environments in which all participants are equally welcome, equally valued and equally heard” (AACU, 1995, p. xxi). References Association of American Colleges and Universities. (1995). The Drama of Diversity and Democracy: Higher Education and American Commitments. Washington, D.C.: Association of American Colleges and Universities. Evans, Nancy and Susan Rankin. 1998. “Heterosexism and Campus Violence.” Pp. 72-81 in Violence on Campus: Defining the Problems, Strategies For Action. Edited by A. Hoffman, J. Schuh, and R. Fenske. Gathersburg: Aspen Publishers. Rankin, Susan. 2003. Campus Climate for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People: A National Perspective. New York: National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Policy Institute. Rankin and Associates, Consulting. June, 2003. Rankin, Susan and Erik Malewski. Accessed August 7, 2003. <http://www.rankin-consulting.com.> Rankin, Susan. 1998. “Campus Climate for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Students, Faculty, and Staff: Assessment and Strategies for Change.” Pp. 277-284 in Working with Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual College Students: A Guide for Administrators and Faculty. Edited by In Ronni Sanlo. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Company. Tierney, William G. and Patrick Dilley. 1996. “Constructing Knowledge: Educational Research and Gay and Lesbian Studies.” Pp. 24-32. Queer Theory in Education. Edited by W. Pinar. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishing.  

Notes:

[1] This article uses the term “lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people” or “LGBT people” to describe individuals who share related experiences of bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity. However, this language is employed with the understanding that many individuals identified as LGBT may choose to use other self-identifying terms or none at all.  Recent research suggests that not all respondents wanted to place themselves in these boxes. Many would prefer choices such as “same-gender loving,” “gender-queer,” “pansexual,” “queer,” “woman-loving-woman,” etc. Some considered the “gay,” “lesbian,” “bisexual,” and “transgender” categories to be predominately white social constructs of identity, and therefore not relevant to their personal experiences. The author chooses to identify as “queer,” not as a label, a camp, or a statement but as a means of confronting and disrupting the static notions of gender and sexuality. The term “queer” allows her to not conform to any discrete categorization of sexuality. However, “queer” was overwhelmingly not the self-identity choice of black LGBT people who were surveyed in a recent study; in fact, most chose gay or lesbian. In addition, as mentioned, there are many other labels that individuals choose. The author recognizes the personal and political import of language and the need to recognize a broad range of self-identity choices.

[2] While the author recognizes the vastly different experiences of people of various racial identities (e.g., Chicano(a) versus African-American or Latino(a) versus Asian-American), and those experiences within these identity categories (e.g. Hmong versus Chinese), given the small numbers of each identity category who participated in this study, it was necessary to collapse these identities into people of color and white people for statistical analyses and comparisons.