A recent study conducted by Oregon Statewide Student Equal Rights Alliance (OSSERA) found a sizable disparity between straight and gay students’ perception of campus safety and the occurrence of harassment.
The study showed 70 percent of straight students said they felt their instructors created a space for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues in class, while only 14 percent of LGBT students said that their various curricula adequately represent the contributions of LGBT students. The two groups differed on their perceptions of harassment as well.
About 20 percent of straight students felt that harassment of LGBT students was somewhat likely or very likely, with students feeling that transgender students were most likely to be harassed. This contrasts to the numbers in LGBT assessments, where as many as 82 percent of respondents felt that transgender students were somewhat likely or very likely to be harassed.
About 45 percent of LGBT students said they had been harassed in the past year, 14 percent of which said that the harassment had taken the form of threats of physical violence, while 38 percent said the harassment was in the form of derogatory remarks.
Approximately 48 percent of straight students said a student had made a derogatory remark about LGBT people in one of their classes. Of those responses, 24 percent said the professor ignored the comment, eight percent said the instructor tried to change the subject and 10 percent said the professor seemed uncomfortable.
Chad Chamberlain, co-coordinater of Portland State University’s Queers and Allies, who helped to coordinate the study at PSU was alarmed by the classroom comment statistic.
“If I hear that, the class is a wash to me,” Chamberlain said. He also explained that the statistic shows a fundamental problem in the university system; that faculty don’t have the tools they need to deal with issues of harassment in class.
“The way we’d like to help [the problem] is with some mandatory diversity training,” Chamberlain said.
PSU currently has two programs in place for diversity training; the Safe Space Network and the Sexual Diversity Task Force, but neither are as comprehensive as Chamberlain would like them to be.
Former ASPSU Communications Director Aaron Bertrand, who has undergone the Safe Space training says of the program, “the university supports it but hasn’t implemented it yet.” Adding that the two-day training program available to students and staff is “about directing people to the right resources.”
About 500 students responded to the study, 64 of which identified them selves as LGBT. The study involved student organizations at most Oregon universities and colleges including: Southern Oregon University, Western Oregon University, Lewis and Clark College, Mount Hood Community College, the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Portland State University.
The study should see wider publication later this summer, as OSSERA finalizes the details of the study. Those interested in advance data should contact Queers and Allies at 503-725-5681 or send an e-mail to queersandallies@mail.pdx.edu.