Check out this Out Magazine interview with Sue Rankin, associate professor of college student affairs in Penn State’s College of Education. Rankin describes the troubling results—especially disheartening in light of the recent spate of suicides—of a 2010 report on the experiences of LGBT students on America’s college campuses. Rankin presented her findings to Congress last week.
One of the students was talking about an incident that occurred on his campus. He was walking across campus, and stumbled on a rally, and one of the people at the rally yelled, “We can either accept homosexuals or burn them at the stake—are you with me?” And a large group of students started yelling, “Burn them.” This student wrote, “There I was, in the midst of it all, with a rainbow flag on my bag, alone and very scared.”