Numerous lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues have been in the headlines recently—one highly publicized example is Mississippi high school student Constance McMillen, who was not permitted to attend the senior prom with her lesbian partner.
Spectrum, an SMU student organization, will be leading “Day of Silence” this Friday across campus in an attempt to raise awareness of the discrimination that LGBT students experience.
Spectrum’s mission is to promote an environment in which all students, sexual orientation and gender identity aside, are permitted to voice their concerns about LGBT issues and encourage equal treatment.
“There was a time when the word faggot meant a bundle of sticks, so the next time you see words like this, think about the people they are hurting,” Spectrum co-president Betsy Lewis said during Tuesday’s Student Senate meeting.
Up to 90 percent of LGBT students say they have skipped school due to harassment, according to Lewis. Some school principals have kicked out LGBT students, because they did not want other students to be “exposed” to them.
SMU landed the No. 14 spot on The Princeton Review’s 2010 list of the nation’s 20 most homophobic schools. The list, “Alternative Lifestyle Not an Alternative,” assesses which schools have a low acceptance of their gay community, with No. 1 being the worst.
“I’ve never experienced any intolerance on campus,” Lewis said. “SMU has been very nice to us.”
SMU Women’s Center also disagrees with this statistic; on Aug. 19, associate vice president and Patricia Ann LaSalle, executive director of public affairs, wrote a rebuttal letter to The Princeton Review’s vice President and publisher Robert Franek.
The letter included numerous campus facts that demonstrate how SMU is more tolerant than The Princeton Review’s statistics show. One example is that “SMU was among the first and the few universities to adopt same-sex partner benefits, a practice that helps SMU recruit a talented and diverse workforce,” LaSalle wrote in the letter.
Lewis says that SMU is increasingly becoming aware of LGBT issues.
“We’ve felt very invisible on campus, so now we finally feel like we’re being seen,” Lewis said.
Spectrum will be at the Hughes-Trigg crossing handing out “Day of Silence” cards and information about how students can help the cause.
For more information, visit www.dayofsilence.org.