Dr. Leslie Hall, director of the HBCU Program at the Human Rights Campaign — the largest LGBTQ lobbying organization in the U.S. — remembers the joyful opening of the LGBTQ+ Resource Office on the main campus of Prairie View A&M University. It coincided with HRC’s HBCU Out Loud Day, which takes place the third Wednesday of October during LGBTQ History Month.
The joy has now turned to sadness as a new law in Texas has dismantled diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices and programs at publicly funded universities.
Point Foundation Scholars
Unquestionably, the past 40 years have brought many steps forward in terms of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer rights, visibility, and consciousness, but in academia it is still a work in progress. A 2022 report from the UCLA School of Law Williams Institute and the Point Foundation, an LGBTQ scholarship fund, noted that 32.6% of LGBTQ people experienced bullying, harassment, or assault at college, compared to 18.9% of non-LGBTQ people. About 45.5% of LGBTQ people reported hearing slurs, and 10.3% noted they received unfair treatment from school administrators.
“The political landscape that’s targeting LGBTQ people is taking a toll on young people’s mental health, especially right now with the Supreme Court decisions and DEI efforts being removed or educational institutions being pressured by their state governments,” says Jorge Valencia, executive director of the Point Foundation.
Evolution
Liam Dacey, a 2004 graduate of University of Notre Dame (UND), one of the nation’s preeminent Catholic institutions, took steps to transfer after coming out his sophomore year, but changed his mind and instead became an advocate for LGBTQ visibility and acceptance on campus.
