Officials in the Office of LGBT Equity — in addition to seeing increased harassment of LGBTQA students on the campus — said the office is “woefully underfunded” and doesn’t have the resources to combat rising intolerance.
The funding concerns come at a time when harassment of LGBTQA community members is on the rise, said Office of LGBT Equity Director Luke Jensen. Despite several new awareness campaigns, two newly founded student groups and a specially designed UNIV 100 course for LGBT students and allies, some community members said they still do not feel safe on the campus.
Sophomore French and Spanish major Will Owen, a gay man, was at the South Campus Dining Hall Oct. 8 eating at a table with friends when a group of students threw an orange at him and began calling him names including “fag” and “gayboy.” Owen said no one intervened, including Dining Services staff and a police auxiliary officer. The group continued yelling names at him, Owen said, as he and his friends got up and left.
Jensen said incidents like Owen’s seem to occur more often in areas such as McKeldin Mall, where there is no authority figure present to put a stop to the conflict. Without a strong support network behind them, he said, LGBTQA students are left on their own to stand up to harassment. He noted, though, that most students don’t report such incidents because it would draw additional attention to themselves.
Sophomore sociology major Mercedes Hatcher-McLarin identifies as queer and also goes by the name “Myke.” She said before her first semester, she contacted her future roommate, who originally said she was not bothered by Hatcher-McLarin’s sexual orientation. Before school started, however, the roommate changed her mind.
“She told me ‘I’m uncomfortable being your roommate. I have a lot of gay guy friends, but I just don’t feel comfortable living with you,'” said Hatcher-McLarin, who co-founded Peer Pride, an on-campus LGBTQA support group.
Hatcher-McLarin added it wasn’t just life in the dorms that made her uncomfortable.
“I don’t feel safe on campus because of my gender expression,” she said. “It’s so easy to get harassed on campus, but you just try to stay above all of it and keep your head up.”
Jensen said while harassment trends seem to spike sporadically, the Rainbow Terrapin Network is an effective means of improving the campus environment by training allies “how to be effective in providing support for LGBT people … standing against anti-LGBT attitudes,” according to its website.
The group offers eight three-hour training sessions this semester; all but the last in December are full. Although there is a demand for such courses, Jensen said the Office of LGBT Equity lacks the resources to offer more. Officials from the Department of Student Affairs, which funds that office, could not be reached for comment.
Until recently, the program was geared toward faculty and staff. It has trained them to deal appropriately with LGBT issues and to facilitate an accepting environment in places such as dorms and classrooms.
“Focusing on faculty and staff clearly isn’t enough,” Jensen said, adding the program now reaches out to students and community members but lacks the funding to accommodate them all.
Jensen said he hopes that with additional funding, more Rainbow Terrapin Network classes can be offered to students who want to learn how they can become active allies on the campus. He said he is optimistic the program will be able to educate people to accept LGBTQA students instead of just tolerating them.
