On Aug. 28 The Daily Tar Heel ran an editorial entitled "A Place to Call Home" urging the University not to establish an Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer Life and Study.
As the "For the Record" correction published by the Editorial Board the day after clarified, the editorial was largely based on factual claims that were either misconstrued or simply generated. One would have thought that as a consequence of recognizing the grave factual errors, the DTH position would change. Alas, the DTH position regarding the LGBTQ Office turned out to be fact-resistant. Behind the guise of facts and arguments emerged a simple, stubborn prejudice.
Furthermore, the issue of an LGBTQ Office was thoroughly analyzed in the report of the Provost Planning Committee on LGBTQ Climate published last semester. The committee -- composed of distinguished professors and key administrators, including the dean of students, as well as graduate and undergraduate students including the current student body president and the former student body vice president, strongly recommended the establishment of the office. The editorial failed to even mention the report or any of its main considerations.
The DTH view may be fact-resistant and provost-report-resistant, but fortunately it cannot be argument-resistant. We wish here to address the main argument made by the DTH and show its fundamental and basic flaws.
The editorial's main point is that the need for an LGBTQ Office arises from some claim to special treatment raised by LGBTQ students, who are a "cultural group" that should not be accorded "special treatment" because they merely represent "group interests." Such cultural associations, the argument continues, should be allowed to compete in the free marketplace of ideas and cultures, and no one group in particular should be assisted by the University.
If nothing else, the editorial's argument is clear and simple. And it is also clearly and simply wrong. The LGBTQ Office is not designed to promote special interests of student cultural groups. The office is supposed to promote important, campuswide, intellectual and community interests. The central purpose of the office will be to establish an academic program in sexuality studies that is purely a scholastic function and is motivated by the desire to provide all UNC students with broader educational opportunities.
Sexuality studies is one of the most fascinating, sophisticated and fast-growing academic areas. Spanning a wide variety of disciplines -- law and sociology, political science and philosophy, history and literary studies, health and human services -- it provides deep analyses into the ways in which the social production and political manipulation of sex and sexual identities shape our lives. Sexuality studies are an integral part of the curriculum at many top universities, and it's about time for UNC to join and contribute to these intellectual and cultural developments.
Additionally, the office will support necessary services for LGBTQ students. The following incident, which occurred last year, is a case in point: A first-year UNC student "came out" to most of the students on his floor. By his second semester, his neighbors' boldness succeeded their chill, and they fearlessly slurred homophobic comments to him aloud. He complained to his RA several times, to no avail. By the end of the semester, it was a truly uncomfortable situation. One morning, after a night of especially noxious obloquy, he awoke to find a bag of feces taped to his door. This graphic, physical articulation by the student's neighbors remains unchallenged. Ultimately, this illustrates one of the reasons why we need an LGBTQ Office at UNC: to formally, systematically confront homophobia and to support the health, safety and well-being of sexual minorities on our campus.
Because of widespread social stigmatization and discrimination, there is pressure for LGBTQ students, faculty and staff to remain "invisible" or "closeted," thereby undermining their equality, restricting their self-development and diminishing their opportunity to contribute fully to the intellectual and social life of the University. This is an institutional problem. However, there is no Universitywide, institutionalized response. The office will fill this gap and will serve as a resource center for the campus community at large by providing accurate and reliable information regarding LGBTQ issues. All this, of course, is again not a fight for some specific cultural interests. It is a fight against discrimination and for equal respect and dignity -- interests that all Americans ought to stand for.
