A prominent national figure in a lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender advocacy group is pressuring Georgetown’s administration to reevaluate the safety of Georgetown students following what he called a feeble University response to the homophobic hate crimes that occurred on campus in the past few years.
Since December, Walter Schubert, the Chairman of the LGBT Chamber of Commerce and the son of John Carroll Award-winner Walter Schubert, Sr., (COL ‘51), has sent two letters to several high-level Georgetown administrators demanding a meeting with President John DeGioia to discuss his proposals. Schubert’s suggestions include a full-scale reevaluation of Georgetown’s security system by a top-tier outside security company, a fundraising campaign to build an expanded LGBTQ Center that he promises to match dollar for dollar, and the use of stronger language by the administration in condemning crimes that happen at Georgetown.
“Despite recent positive actions by the University, it is my strong belief that the current policies and procedures intended to safeguard LGBT students on and immediately off campus remain woefully ineffective,” he wrote in a December 17 letter to several top administrators.
Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson answered his first letter in January, a response that Schubert felt was basically aimed at “making me go away,” and did not respond to his request to meet DeGioia.
When asked for comment, Olson said the University takes such assaults seriously and is constantly considering the security of its students.
“Well, I’m not going away,” Schubert said in an interview. “The need for my efforts really came to me through alumni, current students, and family members who all spoke to me about the deplorable things that [they] have been [through]. And those aren’t going away.”
Schubert’s demands are one of several signs that recent high-profile homophobic and sexual assaults against students have affected how outsiders see Georgetown. Shane Windmeyer, the co-founder and director of Campus Pride, a non-profit organization that helps high school students select LGBTQ-friendly colleges, said that he would not counsel a gay student to attend Georgetown.
In 2007, Windmeyer was one of several outside experts that the University brought in to review its proposal for the LGBTQ Center. While he applauded the creation of the Center as a strong commitment that will help Georgetown become an LGBTQ-friendly school, Windmeyer said that Georgetown has not demonstrated the proactiveness in recruiting LGBTQ students that its peer schools have. Georgetown has never agreed to be evaluated by Campus Pride for its list of the country’s most LGBTQ-friendly colleges, a list that ranks several schools it considers peer institutions and every Ivy League college.
“No campus is immune from bias incidences or hate crimes,” Windmeyer said. “[But] when they happen so frequently, Georgetown can do a lot more than just create a Center and call it a day.”
Olson does not agree that the crimes have affected how others see Georgetown.
“[T]he homophobic crimes last semester did raise questions for students and parents,” he wrote in an e-mail. “With that said, I do not believe that people’s view of Georgetown has been significantly changed by these incidents. Our students, parents, and others understand that crime happens on every campus and in every community.”
Director of Georgetown’s LGBTQ Resource Center Shiva Subbaraman said that the establishment of the center has begun reconciling Georgetown with the LGBTQ community, especially alumni whose experiences at Georgetown were particularly difficult.
But Shruti Dusaj (SFS ‘11), a student who makes calls soliciting donations for the Office of Advancement, said she stills calls alumni who refuse to give because of how painful it was to be gay or lesbian at Georgetown. This week, for the first time, she spoke to a woman who refused to give because she was afraid for the safety of LGBTQ students at Georgetown and because she has yet to see DeGioia address the homophobic incidents in his communications with alumni.
The homophobic crimes on campus this fall prompted American University freshman Ashley Dejean to make a short film about Georgetown for the “Not In Our Town” campaign, a project run by the Public Broadcasting Service that encourages people to respond to hate crimes through media. Dejean said that she was shocked to hear about such crimes happening on a campus so close to AU’s, and disturbed to discover how divided Georgetown’s student body was over accepting LGBTQ students.
For Schubert, acceptance of LGBT students on campus is half the battle. While he is outraged that students’ safety is threatened, he is equally perturbed by the language the University uses when it speaks about the importance of “tolerating” LGBT students.
“Why don’t they change language from tolerating to accepting, welcoming, celebrating?” Schubert said. “Tolerating means ‘we really don’t like you but we’ll put up with you.’ I won’t be satisfied until Georgetown celebrates all the diverse groups within its walls.”
