Princeton Review puts out a yearly list of the most LGBTQ friendly and least-friendly schools, but I was hoping for some detailed explanation for the choices for why colleges are on the least-friendly list. Is it because LGBT students are threatened physically or in other ways at a school or is it because the LGBT club itself isn’t a predominant voice in the school or other reasons?
Here are a few of the schools that have appeared on the least friendly list in past years: Wheaton College, Baylor University, Grove City College, Brigham Young University, Wake Forest University, Pepperdine University, University of Notre Dame, Texas A & M University, and Lehigh University.
Several of those (BYU, Grove City, Pepperdine?) are very religious schools that may have rules governing orientation. It might be difficult to be out and/or happy on a campus where administration and students think you’re wrong for existing.
Princeton Review’s definition of unfriendly is “Do students, faculty and administrators treat all person equally, regardless of their sexual orientation and gender identity/expression?” Almost all of their top 20 “LGBT Unfriendly” schools are in their top 20 “Most Religious” list too. It’s not a coincidence.
Many of the top 20 LGBT friendly colleges are also some of the best schools, including places like Stanford, Oberlin, Smith, Bryn Mawr, Olin, Pitzer, Carlton, Yale, Vassar, Grinnell, Rice, NYU, etc.
Personally, if I were LGBTQ I would find it obnoxious to be preached to that I was sinning, so I’d automatically avoid schools with a majority of vocally religious students & religious requirements. This is not hard to do, and it’s the reason these lists are published in the first place.
Here is an article about Wake Forest’s LGBTQ climate: http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/4325735.html
You can look at Campus Pride for resources available at different colleges.
TAMU and the others are very conservative.
Well I know that University of Notre Dame does not allow any gay affiliated clubs at all. Students have protested this for years. I’ve heard from a friend who goes there that she is treated fine but ostracized.
I think if you take a look at the UCF web site today you would add them to the list.
Because many think Orlando is in the south they do not realize what a LGBTQ+ friendly community it is.
Several of the “least LGBTQ friendly” schools you listed are conservative religious schools of religions that are not very LGBTQ-friendly.
I would think almost every public university and non-religious private college would be just fine with LGBTQ. I’m going to college in Kansas and most everyone I know is either supportive or indifferent.
To add on, I’d like to clarify that not every religious school is going to be anti-LGBTQ. Some schools have very strict religious expectations, like the ones you listed. But there are many schools that hold a religious identity and still are very liberal and LGBT friendly. Look for schools among these that have GSA groups and similar.
While I preferred going to a secular school, I did look into several religious universities and found that many of them were very accepting to LGBT communities. Some examples: DePaul, Fordham, any of the Loyola’s (or any Jesuit school for that matter), Baldwin Wallace. I think these schools are not only more accepting of LGBT students but also of people of different races and religions. One thing I noticed with all of these schools is that they all made a point during the visit to point out that you do not have to be Catholic or even Christian to attend and feel welcomed.
So, while others warn to be wary of “very religious schools”, remember that religious is not a black and white term. There is some gray area.