Article examines LGBT progress at Emory in advance of Atlanta Pride
October 24, 2009 at 12:38 am by Patrick Saunders in NewsEmory University’s student newspaper, The Emory Wheel, has a great story looking back at LGBT relations on campus in advance of next weekend’s Atlanta Pride Festival. The story begins in the mid-1980s. While there were LGBT people and organizations on campus, visibility was low.
That all changed with one simple act.
In December 1991 an incident occurred that helped propel the development of the presence of an LGBT community at Emory: Undergraduate students Alfred Hildebrand and Michael Norris kissed in Thomas Hall and were consequently harassed by other students because of their homosexuality.
“[The other students] said things like, ‘Die f—–s’ and ‘You’ll burn in hell,’” Hildebrand recounted in a 1991 issue of Southern Voice, Atlanta’s LGBT newspaper that launched in 1988.
Hildebrand and Norris filed a complaint but the administration response was weak. They forged on though, gathered support and developed a voice.
The Emory Gay and Lesbian Organization (EGLO) consequently organized a march across the campus in protest, which took place on March 2, 1992. Southern Voice reported that at least 150 students participated in the protest, marching from the Administration Building to the Residence Life office, where they staged a 20-minute sit-in before returning to the administration building to confront then-University President James T. Laney.
It worked. Laney appointed a task force to investigate the climate of lesbian, gay and bisexual life on campus and a full-time position was created in the Office of LGB Life (now Office of LGBT Life) to address student, faculty and staff concerns at Emory. A banquet has been held every March since then commemorating the 1992 protest.
Several milestones followed in the years afterward. Emory’s equal opportunity policy was amended in 1994 to include protection based on sexual orientation. Domestic partner benefits were extended to employees with same-sex partners in 1996.
The national spotlight shone on Emory in 1997 when two staff members of the university’s Oxford College were denied a commitment ceremony in the campus chapel. Same-sex commitment ceremonies are now allowed on campus.
“[The 1997 Oxford incident] was probably the biggest test … of how firm Emory’s commitment to non-discrimination was going to be on the basis of religion and sexual orientation,” [founder of the Office of LGBT Life Saralyn] Chesnut said.
In 2007, the university’s equal opportunity policy was expanded to include gender identity. But the work hasn’t stopped. Next comes the launch of a five-year strategic plan to further the goals of the LGBT community at Emory, according to Michael Shutt, the current Office of LGBT Life director.
“Because we’ve moved so far ahead, it could potentially produce complacency,” Shutt said. “I see a lot of motivation and momentum, but we have to poke and prod sometimes to say, ‘We need to keep moving.’ There’s still a lot of work to do.”
The movement was kicked into high gear by a simple kiss nearly 20 years ago, and it appears Emory University’s LGBT community has no intention of pulling back anytime soon.
Leave a Reply