Group Holds Gay Studies Conference

The rise of gay and lesbian studies centers at Yale University and the City University of New York and the gathering of the first academic conference on homosexual issues, held last weekend in New Haven, signal a new era for homosexual scholarship, university activists at both schools said this week.

The Yale Gay-Lesbian Studies Center, which sponsored last weekend's conference is one of several college-based gay activist groups attempting to introduce homosexuality as a legitimate approach to academic study, similar to the way feminists have introduced women's studies, said Yale Professor of History John Boswell.

Founded by Boswell, the Yale center, which does not have any official university affiliation, consists of about 30 students, faculty and community members. The purpose of the center's conference was "to determine and define exactly what gay-lesbian issues are," Boswell said.

More than 200 people attended presentations in which 40 scholars and authors presented papers and conducted discussions covering aspects of the biology, sociology and history of homosexuality, homosexual art and literature, AIDS, and the problems faced by gay minorities.

Several Ivy League professors participated, and Yale president Benno C. Schmidt delivered a speech on constitutional law and homosexuals.

Some Yale students in attendance questioned Schmidt on the sincerity of his presentation given his reaction to an August Wall Street Journal article that called Yale a "gay school."

Activists said the president exhibited homophobia in a letter he sent to alumni to assure them that there was not a preponderant number of homosexuals at Yale, said Louise Sloan, a Brown University senior who attended the conference.

Schmidt told the activists that he did not believe in discrimination based on sexual preferences, and that his letter was controversial only because of the charged atmosphere surrounding it, according to published reports.

Boswell said the conference itself was too general to yield unambiguous conclusions concerning future activities of the Yale center.

However, Boswell said that a gay and lesbian studies center will formally gain operational status later this month at the Graduate School of the City University of New York (CUNY).

The New York center will hold a panel discussion to commemorate its inception, center founder and CUNY Distinguished Professor of History Martin B. Duberman said.

Duberman also said the CUNY center enjoys stronger institutional support and organization than the Yale center, and expects to play a significant role in national discussion of homosexual issues.

"Enough experience has been gained in the field the last ten years for it to be formally gathered and encouraged," Duberman said.

As of now, the CUNY center wields a $50,000 annual budget and has three standing committees of scholars, students and community activists. The group's "natural ambition is to form a think-tank" of experts in gay and lesbian issues, Duberman said.

Although the CUNY center originally included the Yale activists, Duberman said, it split over differences regarding gender discrimination and the preservation of gay minority rights.

Duberman listed researchers at many universities who are part of the CUNY group, including poet and Stanford professor Adrienne Rich, Yale history professor George Chauncy, and State University of New York at Purchase professor Esther Neufeld.