A History of Greeks United Against Homophobia

During their senior year, they contacted the representative for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community in Cornell's student assembly, described the situation, and asked him to intervene. He scheduled a meeting with Vice-President for Student and Academic Affairs, Susan Murphy, to discuss the generally homophobic climate of the Greek system. Six students, a faculty member, and a staff member met with Vice-President Murphy and began a series of discussions on how this situation could be handled. The meeting showed that not only was there a lot of work to do, there also was strong interest from both students and the administration of the University. 

There was a second meeting scheduled by Vice-President Murphy, this time also including the Dean of Fraternity and Sorority affairs, Randy Stevens. He was not surprised to hear that there were such difficulties for non-heterosexuals in the Greek system, but was visibly stirred by the discussions of the relation between alcoholism, drug abuse, suicide attempts, alienation and homophobia. He arranged subsequent meetings, attended usually by 3 or 4 students, all with different stories to tell about their own difficulties in being gay, lesbian or bisexual in their respective chapters. 

With the help of Randy Stevens, the group of students organized a Zap!, a panel of students discussing issues of homosexuality, attended by the Interfraternity and Panhellenic councils. While initially reluctant to attend and engage the topic, presumably because they considered this a "personal" issue, the final response by the IFC and Panhellenic councils to the panel was very supportive and positive, discussing the possibility of workshops, letters and the like.

 A few months later, the group began calling itself Greeks United Against Homophobia, hoping to establish themselves not only as a support network for each other but also a visible example of lgb members of the Greek System. The group initiated postering campaigns, established its first website, and began slowly networking within the Greek community. By this time, all but one of the initial 6 students in attendance at that first meeting had graduated. Still, the need for the group was visible to those who had come into the organization since.

 In its two years of formal existence, GU has put up dozens of posters, sent out letters to the presidents of every chapter on the Cornell campus both making the group known and offering Zap! panels, held small get-togethers for pizza or dinner, established an electronic mailing list (with members from all over the country), created its first brochure, established a "straight and Greek supporters" list that will be publicly available and survived its first full membership turnover. 

What have we, as members of GU learned? First of all, I think we could say that the best way of initiating change is from within. Those of us who have used the group as a support team to aid us in coming out to our houses have quelled much of that sense of isolation. We have also found that while the Greek system as a whole is strongly homophobic, its leaders can be very fair and honest people. Change comes as a result of harnessing that fairness.

-jfr, 1998