Growing number of colleges receive Campus Pride’s five-star gay-friendliness rating, nearly doubles from last year

This Fall a growing number of American colleges and universities are taking steps to make their campuses safer and more inclusive for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students, according to the new ratings from the Campus Pride’s LGBT-Friendly Campus Climate Index. In fact, 33 schools – nearly double the number from last year – received the highest ratings available for institutions of higher education.

The Campus Climate Index lists nearly 300 publicly available campus climate reports online at www.campusclimateindex.org. The nationally-praised Index takes an in-depth look at LGBT-friendly policies, programs and practices. Colleges are rated from one to five stars, depending on their answers to a detailed, voluntary questionnaire submitted to Campus Pride, a national non-profit working to create safer, more LGBT-inclusive colleges and build future LGBT and ally leaders. Launched online in Fall 2007, the Index has become a staple in student and faculty research, campus organizing efforts and benchmarking for LGBT student safety and inclusion on campus.

Unlike other national LGBT-friendliness rankings for colleges and universities, Campus Pride's Campus Climate Index takes into account answers by students, faculty and staff to highly detailed, comprehensive questions assessing LGBT-friendly policies, programs and practices.

60+ college student leaders and advisors come together from across the United States;

National nonprofit for LGBT college youth plans to award at camp national leadership award to Daniel Hernandez Jr. and names annual "Campy" distinguished service awards and LGBT campus commitment honors.

Today Campus Pride kicks off its fifth annual Campus Pride Summer Leadership Camp aptly called “Camp Pride.” The five day long leadership camp, the only national program of its kind, is geared toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) and ally student leaders from colleges and universities across the United States. This year’s camp is hosted on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN.

The Camp Pride curriculum is based on the Social Change Model of Leadership Development and includes campus organizing techniques, conflict management, social justice advocacy, diversity education and more. In addition to the 60+ LGBT and ally young people, the camp also has a new Advisor’s Bootcamp to train individuals on how to support LGBT youth organizing and activism on campus.

This year Campus Pride will bestow its National Voice & Action Leadership Award to Daniel Hernandez, Jr., the student intern credited with saving the life of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) after the Jan. 8 shooting attack in Tucson, AZ. The award is the only honor of its kind, focused on the work of undergraduate college students who are creating positive change for LGBT and ally issues within their communities.

What can clearly be referred to as an epidemic, within only the past few weeks, a number of gay young men have taken their lives by all indications as a result of the unrelenting homophobic taunts, harassment, and attacks they had to endure by their peers: Seth Walsh, 13, hung himself from a tree outside his California home; Billy Lucas, 15, hung himself in Indiana; Asher Brown, 13, from Texas shot himself in the head; Tyler Clementi, 18, first-year student from Rutgers University took his life by jumping off the George Washington Bridge. And though we are not yet certain of the precipitating factors, now we hear of the tragic suicide of gay student, Raymond Chase, 19, from Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island.

All this comes on the heels of the news from Michigan, where Assistant District Attorney, Andrew Shirvell, has been targeting University of Michigan's gay student-assembly president, Chris Armstrong, for the past six months with abusive and highly inflammatory epithets and images on his internet blog site. For example, Shirvell displayed a photo of a swastika placed over a gay-pride rainbow flag with an arrow pointing to Armstrong's face.

Also on the blog, Shirvell accused Armstrong of seducing "a previously conservative" student until he "morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda." He also has protested outside Armstrong's house, loudly shouting that Armstrong is "Satan's representative on the student assembly."

Read the rest of Shane Windmeyer's post at Bilerico.com...

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