For the record

The issue of gay rights is appearing on college campuses all over the nation. At many institutions including Yale and Dartmouth gay students and alumni groups have become increasingly prominent. Since late in the winter term in Hanover, gay rights has been a central issue in several headline-making events.

At Yale, the issue gained attention largely through a half-page advertisement placed in the Yale alumni magazine by the school's gay alumni group. At Dartmouth, an association of gay and lesbian alumni/ae, which calls itself Dartmouth Lambda and claims some 60 members, recently held its first on-campus gathering. The group was formed a year and a half ago, its founders have said, to establish a connection with the College for alumni who have felt alienated from alumni functions in the past and also to provide support for gay undergraduates. The undergrads have their own group, the Gay Students Association, which was formed six years ago but for the first time this year has a representative on Green Key and on the Collis Governing Board. The past year also saw the formation of an organization called Straights for Gay Rights, which recently gathered nearly a thousand student signatures on a petition calling for the inclusion of a sexual preference clause in the College's non-discrimination statement. The Trustees, however, maintain that the College does not discriminate on the basis of sexual preference, and that inclusion of a non-discrimination clause would open the College to unnecessary legal liability. (Pennsylvania is the only Ivy school with such a clause.)

Dartmouth has found itself in the headlines on several gay-related matters, including the depledging of some allegedly homosexual members from a fraternity last winter, the taping of a GSA meeting by a reporter from the Dartmouth Review, and a Wall StreetJournal editorial on the College's disciplinary action in the taping case.

The "Tri-Kap incident," as the fraternity depledging has come to be known, came briefly into the limelight when two of the students expelled from Kappa Kappa Kappa protested the house's action to the dean's office. The matter just as quickly fell from prominence when the depledged students and the fraternity reached an agreement, one of the stipulations being that neither side would have anything further to say about the incident.

The Review taping, however, seems likely to provide fuel for the media for some time to come. Teresa Polenz, a freshman reporter on the Review staff, attended a publicly announced GSA meeting at which attendees were asked to keep the proceedings confidential. Polenz secretly taped the discussion, which focused on individuals' questioning of their sexuality, and an excerpted transcript was published in the Review. The matter is being investigated by the New Hampshire Attorney General's office for possible violations of state statutes. The College's Committee on Standards, which handles discipline, had scheduled its own hearing on the matter as it related to College regulations, but suspended the hearing until the state case is resolved. The New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union was approached by both the Review (on the freedom of the press issue) and the GSA (on the invasion of privacy issue). At press time, the ACLU had not yet decided which side it would support.

The matter came to national prominence when the Wall Street Journal ran an editorial on May 25 decrying the College's handling of Polenz's COS hearing. Entitled "Dartmouth on Trial," the unsigned commentary lambasted the College for its "skewed vi- sion of free speech and free inquiry." In a letter to the editor printed in the June 1 issue of the Journal, President McLaughlin cast the issue not as one of student discipline or even of free speech, but of "the commitment of an institution to reinforce in its educational process such fundamental values as respect for the rights of others, adherence to principles of honesty, and openness and integrity in interpersonal relationships."

And a day later, in a question-and-answer period with representatives of the Alumni Council meeting in Hanover, President McLaughlin once again addressed the issue: "Many alumni . . . are having a real problem understanding why the College would support a gay student organization. I think it needs to start out with the fact that Dartmouth does support through a budget a large number of student groups. They run from the World Affairs Council to the band to a whole host of other things. . . . The gay group is not illegal. . . . One may not agree with it, I may not agree with it, but I will defend their rights to exist. ... I don't think they are undermining the basic values of this College. . . . Once we say, well, you can only do the things with which I agree or the administration agrees, or the alumni agree, then we have a lesser college. So I think we've all got to be somewhat tolerant."

Martha Leggctt, left, and Carla Small, both '84s from Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority,were crowing over one of the 1,319 pledges received through this year's studenttelethon in April, which raised $54,849. The telethon was but one part of a manypronged attack on the 70th anniversary Alumni Fund, which, it was announced justat presstime, surpassed its dollar goal with a grand total of $10.4 million and set aparticipation rate of 68 percent. This year's campaign set another record as well,with, for the first time, two million-dollar classes 1934 and 1959.