While university police continue to work to keep UCLA’s
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center protected from
vandalism and burglary, UCLA faculty, staff and students pour their
efforts into making the campus safe in a different way.
National Coming Out Week is an annual event designed in part to
encourage members of the LGBT community to embrace and celebrate
their sexuality and dispel stereotypes others may have about being
gay, bisexual or transgender.
It comes this year at an especially crucial time for the LGBT
community, just weeks after a rock thrown through an LGBT center
window as part of a series of attacks shattered the
community’s sense of safety on campus.
Despite the attack against the center, termed a hate crime by
police, many believe UCLA provides an exceptionally safe
environment for coming out.
“UCLA is probably one of the friendliest LGBT campuses in
the country,” said Steven Leider, student affairs officer for
the LGBT Resource Center.
Leider said a big part of that success is the substantial
resources provided for LGBT students at UCLA, including a
3,000-volume library, a brand new computer lab and the LGBT
Center’s new offices and meeting rooms in the Student
Activities Center.
James Schultz, program director for the LGBT studies department,
said UCLA succeeds in the academic environment as well, and is
better than most institutions when it comes to being able to
discuss LGBT issues freely in the classroom.
“I’ve found the university admirably in support of
LGBT studies programs,” Schultz said.
Schultz said colleagues at other universities have told him
stories of LGBT classes that were not good learning environments
because of a disruptive student enrolling in the class. He has
received no such complaints from faculty here.
“In the classroom, students are eager and free to
participate,” he said.
But in the wake of the attacks, it is clear the campus is far
from perfect.
“It makes me furious that somebody or somebodies would be
so cowardly and homophobic to pull a stunt like that,” said
Karen Brodkin, an anthropology professor who teaches LGBT studies
courses.
“It suggests to me there is some indeterminate amount of
homophobia on campus,” she said.
Disregarding recent events, Brodkin said UCLA’s strong
LGBT community generally makes it a “friendly
environment” for gay faculty and for students to discuss LGBT
issues.
But Brodkin also said there is often hesitation from graduate
students who are considering doing research on LGBT topics.
She said the problem is the “stigma that students feel
LGBT issues will have on their careers.”
“There’s a lot more work to be done” to
correct those fears, she said.
Leider said there is also room for improvement, especially at
the administrative level.
Leider said the statement Chancellor Albert Carnesale made
following the attacks spoke against intolerance, but the
administration also cut the center’s budget, giving them less
money to educate against the same problems.
He also said the university needs to spend money researching its
own LGBT students on campus to find out their needs and
concerns.
“We have a whole graduate school of education devoted to
studying college students. Guess which ones they don’t
study,” he said.