I wonder how many glbt graduates of LSU have contacted you and the various disciplines there offering to help give resources to the coverage of homosexuality.
I over the years have made such offers, to the library, sociology department, psychology, etc. I find it makes me have doubts about the education students get when the professors reject serious offers from people who have first-hand knowledge of subjects. I am, to quote a professor at Centenary College, a primary source on the history of the movement to gain equal rights for homosexual Americans. I have been discussed in two major books, Before Stonewall, edited by Dr. Vern Bullough, and Pre-Gay L. A. by Dr. C. Todd White. I have worked with the founders of the movement, most no longer with us. One of my co-workers did the first book on how to cover the issue in the various disciplines (Dorr Legg, Homophile Studies) based on his work, the first in the world on developing courses on aspects of homosexuality.
Yet to my knowledge the library, and the professors in these departments, have never heard of any of this history. That means LSU is not a first-rate university. The material saved from our work in is two universities now, at USC and Cal State Northridge in Southern California, where this movement began in 1950-something too many “academics” don't know—they have only heard of Stonewall, because that is what the popular media has heard about. So students will not know the most important information about the best documented of the three major civil rights movements in America.
And since I have a personal interest in supporting education that is competent and ethical, I see nothing to suggest that LSU fits that category.
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Having never taken university courses such as human sexuality, I have to ask. DO they cover Homosexuality? And isn’t this where this info should be covered? Are there specific courses in Homosexuality? Do these courses come out of the Psychology school?
I cannot imagine employment along these lines, nor can I imagine spending $100,000 for a degree that has no employment opportunities.
As I was such a poor student, it took me an extra semester, plus many summer schools, to graduate (in 2/55 rather than with my class which did in 1954). So I have equal hours in “major” sociology and psychology and education. I did not worry about the professors and course material in the 1950s but feel that today it is incompetent and unethical if any university is not giving basic information to such students who will have to deal with this ”minority.“ As you know we at ONE/HIC don‘t say it is a minority by choice, we are one only because society, legally, etc has made us one—which actually the U. S. Supreme Court said was the issue when it made the decision in the Colorado case (which we agreed with and which stopped a law that discriminated against homosexual Americans ).
(As an aside, I think another Supreme Court decision we agreed with was over affirmative action, which was a Colorado case, from the very area Don owned a home–4 Corners—and the court set aside affirmative action that went against a better qualified-some kind of construction company as I recall and we had always been against affirmative action, having see how it was misused in California.)
So in a sense while psychology has to deal with homosexuality, I consider it a law and sociology department issue. And as I said, former co-worker Dorr Legg did the first educational/academic effort to get a book that covers the basic issues for each discipline. So he/we in fact had the first educational courses in the world as far as I know. For a year or so ONE Institute gave degrees, but for some strange reason, I believe, Dorr got mad at the authorities and refused to cooperate so eventual lost accreditation. But I agree that there are few jobs for someone only educated to this subject matter.
Thank you for this good information. Even though I am not “religious” I always seem to take the advice of a preacher I once heard: when you want something done, you are wasting time trying to get some new person to step forward, the fact is that it is those already active who will be the ones you can rely on for even more work.
So, I am hoping that in the future there will be coordination among the glbt groups on LA campuses. As I hope you know, there is a small one at LSUS (I think there are still homophobic professors here) and at LA Tech. There was one at Centenary, but not sure it is still going. I even hope Tulane students will work someday with LSU students.
I don’t know how much good it does now, but in the future interests of the community/movement, I hope all groups will be listed in Gayellow Pages. I also wonder if the student group there works with Campus Pride and other resources. And again, I don't know what good it will do, but it seems to me logical to think that information to and from such publications and organizations as Stonewall, Log Cabin, Forum for Equality, local MCC churches, listings and info in Ambush Magazine, etc will give even more resources to LSU students.
I base my thinking today on what was done at LSU when I was there in 1950-54. At that time racial desegregation was happening. and the irony is that Southern was concerned that it would harm their great university, but two groups started information meetings between students at LSU and southern. The YM/YWCA had such meetings, and so did The Wesley foundation. This was good psychology, sociology, (and using religion) and helped LA to later have some citizens prepared—since many had never associated with people of other races on an equal basis. (Remember that this was the time of the FIRST bus boycott, in Baton Rouge.)
I also hope the alumni magazine will have a story on the work of getting students ready to deal with such issues as they will not go away, and no matter what views students have they will have to know how to live in a diverse nation.
That is why I am concerned that the sociology, psychology, history departments might not know basic resources on knowing what has happened to get America to this place dealing with the three major civil rights efforts. Ours, the work to gain civil/equal rights for homosexual Americans, is the best documented and can be told fast and easily. But even glbt people don't know how the world changed from the start of the effort in 1950 to what it is today. As with any cause it should be studied to know how it either succeeded, as ours has, or failed. The two books I have mentioned, which cover my work also as a minor part, cover this history well. Before Stonewall, edited by Dr. Vern Bullough, then a professor at Cal State Northridge and USC (ironically in nursing, his first wife's efforts too, although he was an historian) which can be confusing as there is another book by that same title and a documentary as well, and Dr. C. Todd White's book published last year by the University of Illinois Press, Pre-Gay L. A., also confusing as Stuart Timmons also has a book titled Gay L. A. The credit given to the Stonewall event in New York in 1969 is important, but it has to be put in perspective since we had been working on this cause since the founding in Los Angeles in 1950 by the early Mattachine people (also covered by Timmons in the biography The Trouble with Harry Hay) from which came the public effort, ONE, Inc. and ONE Magazine, in 1952, from which came the Homosexual Information Center in 1965. (Website: http://www.tangentgroup.org), and each decade since the number of people and groups and publications has grown. And I was there from 1959 on, mentioning LSU as my background.
Best wishes in your work.
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