[97fan]

Stanford has come a long way from 1994, when a half dozen athletes vandalized the gay liberation statue.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=22...97,2240137

I don't like to bring up negatives WRT Stanford and Stanford athletics, but even two decades later, my gay friends from Stanford are still horrified that this happened.  Some still refuse to root for the Stanford football team.

BC

Stanford, and U.S. society more broadly, have indeed come a long way since 1994 when it comes to gay rights. My memory of the reaction to this incident is that most of the outrage came from the gay community on campus. Obviously there were statements of disapproval from other quarters, but the vandalism and the fallout from it did not stay in the pages of the Daily for all that long.

Imagine what the reaction would be like if a similar incident happened today. My guess is that we would see protests on campus in which the number of straight protesters far exceeds that of gay ones. Among straight Stanford students in 1994 there was a lot of indifference about gay rights. Today I'd guess the far more prevalent feeling is empathy. Which is definitely progress.

(If my memory is faulty, I'm sure someone will let me know. It's totally possible that what I'm remembering is more an indictment of how me and my friends reacted to the statue vandalism than it is of the reaction of straight students generally.)

[97fan]

Stanford has come a long way from 1994, when a half dozen athletes vandalized the gay liberation statue.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=22...97,2240137

I don't like to bring up negatives WRT Stanford and Stanford athletics, but even two decades later, my gay friends from Stanford are still horrified that this happened.  Some still refuse to root for the Stanford football team.

BC

Stanford, and U.S. society more broadly, have indeed come a long way since 1994 when it comes to gay rights. My memory of the reaction to this incident is that most of the outrage came from the gay community on campus. Obviously there were statements of disapproval from other quarters, but the vandalism and the fallout from it did not stay in the pages of the Daily for all that long.

Imagine what the reaction would be like if a similar incident happened today. My guess is that we would see protests on campus in which the number of straight protesters far exceeds that of gay ones. Among straight Stanford students in 1994 there was a lot of indifference about gay rights. Today I'd guess the far more prevalent feeling is empathy. Which is definitely progress.

(If my memory is faulty, I'm sure someone will let me know. It's totally possible that what I'm remembering is more an indictment of how me and my friends reacted to the statue vandalism than it is of the reaction of straight students generally.)