The Nation's Most Gay-Friendly College 

Florida's New College the nation's most gay-friendly Hoping to locate a gay-friendly college where students and faculty will accept you as an out student? Check out the latest issue of The Princeton Review, which provides a list of the most gay-friendly colleges in the United States. According to responses from 110,000 students at 361 top colleges in the United States, New College of Florida ranks number 1 when it comes to having a campus community accepting of gay students. Located adjacent to the John Ringling Art Museum in Sarasota, New College also ranks as the number 1 most politically active school—and number 1 for having a near absence of intercollegiate sports. Filling out the top five positions for gay-friendly schools are Macalester College of St. Paul, Minn.; Wellesley College in Massachusetts; Eugene Lang College/New School University in New York City; and Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. The best school for overall academic experience is Reed College in Portland, Ore.—but that school ranks 18th for being gay-friendly. Topping the list of least gay-friendly schools is Virginia’s Hampden-Sydney College, the University of Notre Dame, and Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

LGTB News

Fighting for Fairness By Tony Marco

From The Advocate January 17, 2006

After she was outed by several peers at Holmdel High School in Holmdel, N.J., as a freshman in 2001, Nancy Wadington says she was taunted and harassed by other students. In one incident she was pushed down a staircase. In another, several students urinated on her backpack. Through it all, Wadington, now 18, complained to school officials, who did nothing to stop it, she claims. Feeling unsafe, she left Holmdel High, eventually graduating from a special-needs school she attended due to stress. With the help of the gay rights group Lambda Legal, Wadington filed a lawsuit September 7 against the Holmdel Township board of -education. That same day, 
17-year-old Charlene Nguon and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California filed suit against Santiago High School principal Ben Wolf and the Garden Grove Unified School District in Orange County, Calif. Nguon says she was suspended twice for showing public affection on campus and was told by Wolf not only that she and her girlfriend had to be separated but that one of them had to leave Santiago. Nguon volunteered. The two pending lawsuits illustrate the legal stand that increasing numbers of openly gay and lesbian students are willing to take. They are arguing for basic protections and fairness, and in most cases they are winning. “The principal was just singling us out,” explains Nguon, noting she has never had discipline problems in the past. “Even though straight students did the same thing, they never got 
in trouble.” Nguon, who is back at Santiago High as a senior (where Wolf is still principal), is asking for a district-wide policy to ensure gay and lesbian students are treated equally. “It’s just not right…and I don’t want [the school administration] to harass other students,” she says. According to the Los Angeles Times, in response to Nguon’s allegations, district spokesman Alan Tru-dell said his district “does not engage in any discriminatory practices.” Wadington also says she hopes her lawsuit will make things better for others. “Dealing with abuse and harassment from other students…was a daily struggle for me and continues to be a problem for other gay and lesbian students,” she says. Holmdel officials are denying Wadington’s allegations, 
according to Lambda Legal’s Alphonso David. The courage and tenacity shown by Wadington and Nguon are important to the overall fight for equality, notes David. “When a student sees another standing up for their rights, there is a ripple effect.”