Word: lgbt
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...This weekend, LGBT students, alumni, faculty, and staff will celebrate the past, present, and future of LGBT life at Harvard. Going through boxes of old Lambda materials, we realized how different this organization was in its early years. Reading the decades-old banners from student rallies, we sensed the urgency that pushed students in the 1970’s and 1980’s to organize and demand an end to harassment and discrimination at Harvard. In its early days, Lambda worked with other members of the community, pushing the university to adopt a nondiscrimination policy that protected people...
...less glamorous duties that came along with joining the board of Lambda, Harvard Law School’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) organization, was the task of cleaning up the office. Lambda was founded as the Committee on Gay Legal Issues 30 years ago. If the state of the office told us anything, it was that three decades of Lambda leadership had never thrown away a single old poster, flier, banner, or note. But these piles were more than just an impediment to us. Sorting through what some might take to be junk, we discovered an archive?...
...early ’90s, with Bowers v. Hardwick (the case which upheld the criminalization of sodomy) on the Supreme Court’s Docket, and the AIDS crisis exploding into the news, LGBT students were louder and more visible than ever. These students insisted that their professors address issues central to queer identity, demanding a class on sexual orientation and the law, and collaborating with other student groups to push for faculty diversity. Activism flared up more recently when the school decided to let military recruiters on campus rather than risk the University’s federal funding...
...Through the efforts of these law students and of the LGBT community at large, the law school was certainly more bearable for sexual minorities in this decade than when Lambda was founded. However, with these improvements, the sense of urgency so present in the early days of Lambda has waned somewhat. The focus of Lambda has shifted to social and community building events, with activism and political organization taking more of a backseat role. While we have a yearly conference addressing cutting edge LGBT legal issues, it tends to be more academic than rabble-rousing...
...blessing. It would be ungrateful to disregard the difficulties that spurred the action of earlier Lambda members and naïve to be nostalgic for a period when being out was itself a struggle, but the decrease in activism has frustrated those of us who think there are important LGBT battles yet to be won. We recognize the value of building community and coming together for social activities. And we’d hate to see queer night at Daedalus disappear (see you on Thursdays)! But this weekend gives us a valuable opportunity to reflect on the struggles behind...