Word: schatz
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Despite the internal self-assurance, Schatz and students like him who were "coming out," still felt the need to band together. Schatz moved to Adams House ("None of my straight classmates wanted to go there that year, because of its gay reputation," he remembers with a grim smile.) That year, Schatz says, the first "gay clique" formed in Adams House. When he first moved in, the students who were a year older--the first group of open gays at Harvard--kept up their spirits and challenged the prejudices of fellow students by "being outrageous," Schatz remembers. "It was an attack...
...first of many excursions out of the protected world of GSA's Saturday night dances at Phillips Brooks House (PBH), Schatz and a few other Adams House friends would try going to House parties, attempting to integrate Harvard social life with tactics reminiscent of 1960s Freedom Riders. "So many times, I remember, we would go to a Mather House party, start dancing and the party would stop all of a sudden and we would be told to leave. It was pretty ridiculous; there were four of us out of 40 people at a party and people would get upset...
That summer Schatz started out as a Bloomingdale stockboy, got fed up, quit and then went to Washington to canvas for the equal rights amendment with the National Women's Political Caucus. His introduction to activism by way of feminist politicking, coupled with the news of the impending National March for Gays and Lesbians, catalyzed Schatz' political college career. "I decided I would come back to Harvard and organize for the march," he says...
Organizing for the march entailed presenting himself publicly as an interested party, and Schatz remembers the first awkward announcement. He was taking Government 133. "The Politics of Women's Liberation," and wanted to tack up a poster announcing the march. After posting it on the bulletin board one day before a lecture, Ethel Klein, assistant professor of Government and professor of the course, suggested he announce it to the class. "I thought to myself, 'What!, before all these people?'" But he did, and all went well...
...Schatz's name began to circulate as an openly gay student who was willing to make his name public for the sake of organizing for gay rights, other privately gay students timidly sought him out as a confidante. In the next four years, Schatz became a folk hero and a sign of a change in the political climate. "We all owe Ben a great deal of gratitude," one gay graduate who asked that his name not be identified, says, adding. "He is a symbol for the politically aware generation...