With classes starting this week, everybody on campus was probably nervous about something or other. Luckily, Washington University has resources coming out of its ears. Students concerned about eating right can see the campus nutritionist. Roommates worrying about whether they’ll get along can go to their RAs. Freshmen struggling to navigate their way from class to class can consult the campus maps, or any passerby.
But WU undergraduates who are homosexual, bisexual, or transgendered, or who are questioning their sexuality and seeking support, aren’t so fortunate.
Spectrum Alliance, WU’s GLBTQA (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Trans- gendered, Questioning, Allies) social/ political/support group, currently has no executive board. No one has stepped up to be president, vice president, treasurer, secretary or public relations director. At last week’s freshman-only Spectrum meeting, an erstwhile officer said encouraging words about this community’s open, respectful attitude towards gay people. But he lamented Spectrum’s lack of leadership. After the meeting, Spectrum’s advisor privately admitted that if the group didn’t find a president by the Activities Fair on September 4, there would be no Spectrum this year.
Meanwhile, gay freshmen-some who are just coming out, some who are nervously attending WU after being rejected from schools with reputations for large, accepting GLBTQ communities like Brown and Yale, and some who have never came out – find themselves, at this crucial point in their lives, lacking an essential resource.
The mere thought of an ostensibly liberal institution of 6,000 undergraduates with no gay student group should be enough to humiliate all of us into action. This is a country so ugly that it refuses to allow upstanding, well off, compassionate homosexual couples to adopt children for fear they’ll pass homosexuality on to them. It also denies gays the civil liberty to marry whomever they want. Colleges and universities should be havens for gay people, until the rest of our country is ready to understand what should be completely elementary-that we are all equal.
Given this presidential administration’s penchant for limiting civil liberties, the apathy evident in our willingness to watch Spectrum die is especially disrespectful and irresponsible. The fight for gay rights should be everyone’s fight, because when some peoples’ rights are limited, everybody suffers. By not jumping to the rescue of Spectrum, our community loses an opportunity to raise its collective consciousness, to stand at the forefront of a national movement for justice, and to make this school as good and welcoming and well reputed as it can be.
Together they stand
Spectrum’s problem is WU’s problem, and WU contains the solution.
The fraternities and sororities should offer their leadership and organization skills to Spectrum. Having a Spectrum exec board member from a fraternity would dispel the myth of heterosexism on frat row and revive Spectrum’s administration.
Exec board members of ABS and ALAS should lend their advice to the group. ABS and ALAS are two successful and influential groups that have sociopolitical goals in common with Spectrum. But unlike the group, they have a treasure trove of experience in helping engender respect and awareness of minorities on campus.
And everyone in the WU community who cares about human rights, civil liberties, fairness, support and compassion in our community should attend the first Spectrum Alliance meeting, Wednesday, September 4th at 8p.m. in McMillan Caf‚. Once we’re all there, we can work together to fix our problem.