Purpose This study was undertaken to provide quantitative information to the Chancellor and the newly-formed committee on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community Concerns on the nature, extent and effects of harassment of gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) students. Specifically, the study assessed student knowledge about GLB-related issues, and documented the students' attitudes and behaviors toward GLB students, faculty and staff.

Creating and preserving a campus atmosphere that offers equal learning opportunities for all students is one of the primary responsibilities of university personnel. A group that has historically been a target of discrimination and which is cited in the University's equal rights statements are gay, lesbian and bisexual students. The policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), states:

... the practice or display of legally impermissible, arbitrary, or unreasonable discriminatory practices against any person or group based on sexual/affectional orientation is prohibited by the Regents of the University of California and will not be tolerated on the UCSC campus.

The intent at UCSC is to promote and maintain an atmosphere where students of all sexual orientations can feel comfortable. This is a goal that goes beyond the minimum legal requirements stated in the University's policy statement.

Literature Review Studies at other universities (i.e., University of Illinois, Rutgers University, and University of Massachusetts) examined both obvious and subtle types of harassment. The incidence of subtle forms of harassment was much greater than for acts of blatant violence. Further, suggestions offered by Plasek and Allard (1984) provided a methodological and measurement framework from which to create survey instruments.

Methodology Two surveys were developed. The first, referred to as the general survey, was randomly distributed to twenty percent of the undergraduate and graduate students. The general survey was designed to: (1) assess student attitudes toward GLB students, faculty, and staff; (2) document students' acceptance of certain types of discrimination or harassment; (3) assess student knowledge about GLB individuals and related issues; and (4) determine the proportion of students who were gay, lesbian or bisexual. The second survey, referred to as the select survey, was distributed through various GLB networks and other student organizations. The select survey primarily focused on the nature, site, frequency, and effects of harassment and discrimination. Because both surveys were anonymous, it was not possible to follow-up or confirm reported cases of harassment.

Results The surveys were distributed during the fall of 1988. Thirty-seven percent (616) of the randomly-administered general surveys were returned. The respondents appeared to be representative of all UCSC students. The percentage of error for percentages derived from the general survey are estimated to be plus or minus three percent. One-hundred-and-twelve select surveys were returned and the respondents did not appear to be a representative group. All percentages cited in the Executive Summary are based on the general survey.

Nine percent of the male students identified themselves as being primarily attracted to people of their own sex as did eight percent of the female students. Six percent of all respondents identified themselves as being attracted to people of both sexes. Based on a 1989 Fall enrollment of 9,784, the results of the survey predict that about 1,450 UCSC students are gay, lesbian or bisexual.

With regard to the academic atmosphere on campus, one-fourth of the GLB students said that they had attended classes where the instructor ignored GLB-related issues when they were appropriate to discuss. In addition, thirteen percent said that anti-gay, anti-lesbian or anti-bisexual remarks were made by professors in the classroom.

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual students were less comfortable than heterosexual students, however they did not appear to be socially isolated. None of the GLB students reported keeping their sexuality a secret, but thirty percent told (were 'out' to) only a select group. Half of the GLB students said they belonged to an organization that serves the GLB community and three-fourths of the students had attended a social event sponsored by such an organization. Three-quarters of the students said homosexuality was generally discussed in a positive or neutral manner while twenty percent reported it was talked about negatively.

There was little evidence that University staff deliberately treated GLB students differently than other students, however GLB students reported having difficulty with finding satisfactory counseling. Only one GLB student reported being refused on-campus housing because of his sexual orientation, however about ten percent of the GLB students said they had a difficult time finding comfortable living arrangements on campus. Thirty percent of the GLB students said they felt uncomfortable in on-campus housing because of their sexual orientation compared to only seven percent who lived off-campus.

Compared to other campuses that have conducted similar studies, there was considerably less harassment of GLB students at UCSC. Never-the-less, over twenty percent of the GLB students said they had concealed their sexual orientation to avoid harassment and sixteen percent of the GLB students said they feared for their physical safety on campus. Verbal abuse was the most common form of harassment. Gay, lesbian and bisexual students who were open about their sexual orientation reported higher levels of harassment than GLB students who were less open. Students generally did not report incidents of harassment to campus officials, although a fourth had talked to a faculty member or someone at Counseling and Psychological Services.

Seventeen items from the survey were combined to create a scale to measure homophobia. Freshpersons were considerably more homophobic than other groups and the degree of homophobia continued to decline as students advanced. Male students were considerably more homophobic than female students. Students who had attended workshops or courses which discussed GLB issues were significantly less homophobic than those who had not. In addition, the more GLB people a student knew, the lower the student's homophobia. Further, the better a student knew a GLB individual, the lower their homophobia.

Forty-one students were classified as severely homophobic. Based on this percentage (7%), the total number of students on campus for whom homophobia may be a problem will approach 700 this fall. Thirty percent of the severely homophobic students reported not knowing any GLB people compared to only eight percent of the nonhomophobic group. The same percentage of homophobic students had attended workshops, lectures and other events as students in the general population. This suggests that for students with extreme homophobia, providing information may not be an effective way of changing their attitudes and emotions. Even though these students reported being more homophobic, it is difficult to infer that they are more prone to overt harassment than other students.

Implications and Recommendations Only forty percent of the students surveyed knew about UCSC's policy regarding sexual orientation. This suggests that department heads, board chairs, residence assistants, etc. be encouraged to periodically remind their constituents about the policy. Since anti-gay, anti-lesbian or anti-bisexual remarks by faculty members and teaching assistants were commonly reported, the faculty should review the campus' policy on sexual orientation. Because the grievance procedures for GLB harassment are new, the campus should work to ensure that all students are aware of the process and should examine any barriers which limit its use.

Students reported that they would like more information on GLB issues (such information appears to reduce homophobia). The campus should consider exploring ways to provide additional educational opportunities (especially for freshpersons, who were the most homophobic). The colleges should also review current freshperson orientation programs including materials and discussions related to sexual orientation.

The campus should periodically examine the need for future campuswide and programmatic evaluations. Careful monitoring of the effects of new policies and programs is necessary to judge their effectiveness. Because of the political sensitivity of the issues involved, it will be important to carefully document the campus' progress. For example, the training programs for residence hall supervisors should be periodically evaluated and housing units should routinely evaluate new policies with regard to GLB students. Similarly, the campus' new counseling programs should undergo careful evaluation to determine if the needs of GLB students are being met. The new GLB resource center should also be evaluated on how well it meets the needs of the students with regard to its location, services, space, and staffing.

INTRODUCTION

Creating and preserving a campus atmosphere that offers equal learning opportunities for all students is one of the primary responsibilities of the university. University policies have been developed to assist individuals from groups who, in the past, have been systematically denied access to education. Several groups (e.g., women and ethnic minorities) have been specifically targeted for special attention in university equal rights policies. In addition to receiving special advising, counseling, academic and financial support, the University is bound by law to make every effort to eliminate any organizational or personal forms of discrimination.

Another group that has historically been a target of discrimination and which is often cited in university equal rights statements are gay, lesbian and bisexual (GLB) students. The policy at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), states:

Students, faculty, administrators, and staff who are perceived to be gay, lesbian, or bisexual are to be free from harassment or legally impermissible, arbitrary, or unreasonable discrimination related to their sexual/affectional orientation. The strength of the campus community lies in its open dialogue between persons and groups of differing views. No one is asked to personally embrace a particular identity; what is asked is a thoughtful and reasoned approach to differences.

Therefore, the practice or display of legally impermissible, arbitrary, or unreasonable discriminatory practices against any person or group based on sexual/affectional orientation is prohibited by the Regents of the University of California and will not be tolerated on the UCSC campus. In addition, harassment, as defined in the Rule Book, is a violation of campus regulations.

Similar policies have been adopted at campuses across the country (e.g., University of Illinois, Rutgers University, and University of Massachusetts).

Providing student organization and counseling support may not be sufficient to ensure that the campus provides equal support and protection for GLB students. Although these services may exist and may be successful, they may do little to alter an atmosphere of suspicion and misunderstanding. The intent at UCSC is to promote and maintain an atmosphere where students of all sexual orientations can feel comfortable. This is a goal that goes beyond the minimum legal requirements stated in the University's policy statement.

The University first began studying the academic and social climate for GLB students in 1986. At that time, the Student Union Assembly (SUA) passed a resolution calling for the Chancellor to "immediately form a committee to catalog and report to the SUA the needs and concerns of the gay community." In addition, the SUA asked that "gay, lesbian, and androgynous" students be included in the University's Student Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Program. The resulting committee interviewed groups of students about GLB issues and issued its report in 1987. As a result of the committee's recommendations, the University created a permanent committee to address the needs of the GLB community.

This study was undertaken to provide quantitative information to the Chancellor and the newly-formed committee on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community Concerns (referred to as the Committee) on the nature, extent and effects of harassment of GLB students. Specifically, the study assessed student knowledge about GLB-related issues, and documented the students' attitudes and behaviors toward GLB students, faculty and staff. The study focused on campus-related issues and did not attempt to examine the larger community. The results will be used as the basis for judging the need for new programs and policies, and the effectiveness of future interventions, if any, that may be undertaken.

LITERATURE REVIEW

In a review of the published studies on attitudes toward homosexuality, Plasek and Allard (1984) identified three main areas of research: (1) cognitive stereotypes of homosexuals; (2) perceived threat from homosexuals; and, (3) opinions about the management of homosexuality and homosexuals including possible social and legal restrictions on their civil liberties. They also found persistent methodological flaws in these studies. For example, several studies defined homosexuality as a unitary characteristic which blurred the differences between gay men, lesbian women, and bisexual people. In other studies the researchers viewed homosexuality as a social category, forcing respondents to interpret all of a homosexual's behavior in terms of his/her homosexuality. A related problem has been to focus on homosexuality as a trait, rather than as a set of behaviors, which suggests social context is unimportant when discussing homosexuality. Given the seriousness of these flaws, they argue that such research has shed very little light on attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals.

Many of these investigations employed attitude scales. These scales ranged from simple one-item scales (e.g., the CIRP annual freshman survey) to complex semantic differential scales (e.g., MacDonald & Games, 1974). These scales, according to Plasek and Allard, suffer from at least six types of measurement problems. First, researchers have used items that emphasize a cognitive response to homosexuality. Emotional and behavioral responses have not been emphasized. Second, cognitive and affective dimensions of attitudes have been confounded. Plasek and Allard suggest that this leads to the incorrect labelling of negative feelings toward homosexuality as beliefs about homosexuality (e.g., it is bad, wrong, immoral, sinful or abnormal). Third, studies have not placed homosexuals and homosexuality in social contexts in order to see how attitudes differ as a result of context. Fourth, researchers generally have not clearly defined their terms and, as a result, people base their responses on their personal definition of homosexuality. Fifth, researchers have not described the qualitative procedures they employed to create the items. Plasek and Allard argue that anti-homosexual items tend to be drawn from the researchers' own negative stereotypes. Finally, most surveys assume that people know enough about homosexuality to respond appropriately.

There has been little published research on the adaption of GLB students to university campuses. In a recent review of research on the sexual attitudes and behavior of college students, Spees (1987) found three major areas of GLB study: recognition of GLB student organizations, the development of GLB student support groups, and the problems associated with AIDS and AIDS education. Legal reviews of GLB student rights (e.g., Stanley, 1984) have focused almost exclusively on the right to form and receive support for student organizations.

Although much of the academic literature on attitudes toward homosexuality appeared to be of little use, other colleges, prompted by their own constituencies, have also studied gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues and concerns. These studies, generally completed by university task forces, proved to be of immense value. Findings from studies conducted at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1985), Rutgers University (1987), and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1987) are summarized below.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst

During the Fall semester of 1984, a series of confrontational events occurred on the campus. These events convinced the administration that GLB students were "subjected to an unusual amount of harassment and may well lack any of the usual student services sensitive to their needs as a group" (University of Massachusetts, 1985, p. 1). These events included a "Heterosexuals Fight Back" march and rally, campus posters saying "Finals Week is Hang a Homo Week", and flyers announcing "GAY BUSTERS - We're coming next semester and we're going to kick some ass." The seriousness of these events led the administration to evaluate the campus' climate, needs, and existing services for GLB students.

The evaluation process was thorough and included several student questionnaires, a telephone survey of students, an open-ended survey distributed to members of the gay, lesbian, and bisexual community, an abbreviated survey that appeared in the student newspaper, surveys sent to student services units, and residence hall surveys. Also considered was qualitative data from student speakers at the Student Speak Out on Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Oppression which was held in response to the events that prompted the study.

Survey results showed that over half of the student body believed there were widespread anti-gay and anti-lesbian attitudes on campus. Over a third of the students frequently saw anti-gay or anti-lesbian graffiti on campus. Disturbingly, almost three-fourths of the student body believed GLB students were directly and verbally harassed; over half believed these students had been the victims of vandalization; and close to half believed that GLB students received threatening phone calls. Predictably and unfortunately, students were reluctant to intervene in these types of harassments: only one-fourth would be willing to intervene directly, and fewer than five percent would report such an incident.

Gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported a similar, though less pronounced pattern of harassment. About eighty-five percent reported that they frequently saw anti-gay or anti-lesbian graffiti. Almost half reported having received verbal threats, a third had been harassed over the telephone, and a fifth reported physical confrontations or assaults. Many of these students also felt their sexual orientation was responsible for other, more subtle, forms of discrimination including lower grades (60%), job discrimination (21%), and being forced out of housing (13%).

Based on both the quantitative and qualitative data, the study concluded that "lesbian, gay, and bisexual students experience a range of verbal and physical assault [sic] which exceeds that of any other group of students" (University of Massachusetts, 1985, p. 20). When this occurred, GLB students were either afraid or unwilling to report such instances. One reason for not reporting these assaults was that GLB students considered student services to be inadequate and student services personnel to be insensitive to gay and lesbian issues and concerns. Academics was also determined to be an area of concern for GLB students. Professors were deemed to be at best ignorant of, and at worst prejudiced against, the experiences by gay men and lesbian women. Finally, GLB students who were most open about their sexuality were much more likely to experience harassment and discrimination. They also were more likely to seek the assistance and support of the University in attempting to redress their grievances.

The University of Massachusetts report concluded that a "clear definition of sexual identity is a primary task for the college years. This is a stressful task even for heterosexual students and often an overwhelming one for lesbian, gay and bisexual students. The lack of adequate physical protection, the anti-gay stance of many academic courses, the inadequacy of student services and the openly anti-gay atmosphere in many residence halls combine to create a climate producing anxiety and depression for many of these students. This is particularly true for those whose self-image suffers from the negative attributes assigned to lesbian, gay and bisexual people by societal prejudice" (p. 21).

Rutgers University

For two years, gay men and lesbian women reported incidents of harassment to members of the Rutgers faculty. For example, gay men living in campus dormitories would routinely awaken to find the words "AIDS Victim" written on their doors. Throughout the day they would witness the anti-gay and anti-lesbian graffiti that abounded on the campus (Rutgers, 1987, p. 11). Incidents such as these caused Rutgers University to engage in a self-study that was similar to the study performed at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Rather than a campuswide task force, this study was performed by the students enrolled in the Homosexuality and Society class offered by the Women's Studies Program. Under the direction of their instructor, students followed the methodology developed at Amherst.

Even though the frequency of harassment at Rutgers was less than at Amherst, it was far from acceptable. Almost a third of the Rutgers campus community thought it was at least fairly likely that a GLB person would be harassed, threatened, or assaulted. An even higher percentage, almost half, believed that a GLB student would receive unfair treatment on campus. These results were fairly well matched by the experience of gays, lesbians, and bisexuals on campus. A third reported more than one instance of verbal insults, one-sixth reported being threatened at least once with physical violence, one-eighth reported having been the target of thrown objects, and one-fifth had been chased or followed. Unfortunately, the obvious malicious intent of these events was overshadowed by more serious events: four percent reported having been punched, hit or beaten, and two percent had been assaulted or wounded with a weapon. Needless to say, many GLB students kept their sexual identities secret, fearing for their safety. So pronounced was the anti-GLB sentiment on campus, that even the student researchers feared for their own safety. Among those who were formally acknowledged in their final report were

"the unnamed other students who worked on this report from the Homosexuality and Society class who were afraid to have their names associated with a study on homophobia because 'someone might think we're gay'" (p. iii).

The main conclusion of this study was similar to Amherst's, namely that GLB students do not have access to, or receive, the same rights and services as do heterosexual students.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Unlike the University of Massachusetts and Rutgers, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1987) report did not list precipitous events which prompted the formation of their universitywide study. In 1986, the Chancellor appointed a task force, and charged it to (1) document the campus climate as it existed for gay and lesbian individuals, (2) recommend a program of social education, and (3) explore the potential need for an institutional policy. Using methods similar to those developed at Amherst, the committee developed two surveys. The first, sent to a random sample of the campus community, established the extent of campus awareness of discriminatory practices toward gays and lesbians. The second survey was distributed solely to gay and lesbian members of the campus community. This survey was used to document the experiences of gay men and lesbian women.

Compared to Amherst and Rutgers, there was less awareness of the problems faced by gay men and lesbian women. Only about ten percent of the campus community had witnessed instances of verbal harassment, but almost sixty percent of the GLB respondents had witnessed or experienced such harassment. Only three percent of the campus community had witnessed instances of physical confrontation, even though fifteen percent of the gay and lesbian community had witnessed or experienced such incidents. Not surprisingly, the campus community reported only a few instances of the more subtle types of discrimination. Members of the gay and lesbian community reported higher rates for these types of incidents.

The frequency of the harassment and discrimination, however, did not reveal the impact of the incidents on GLB students. Even though few incidents were reported, around forty percent of the gay and lesbian respondents reported having been "socially ostracized," and about a third reported having felt ridiculed in classes. Clearly, passive acceptance of anti-gay and anti-lesbian practices, even if relatively infrequent, had a negative impact on GLB students' sense of well-being. As was the case at Amherst, the primary outcomes were loss of self-esteem and increased feelings of isolation.

To summarize, studies at other universities have examined both obvious and subtle types of harassment. The incidence of subtle forms of harassment was much greater than for acts of blatant violence. Further, the suggestions offered by Plasek and Allard (1984) provided a methodological and measurement framework from which to create the appropriate survey instruments.

METHODOLOGY

Two surveys were developed. The first, referred to as the general survey, was randomly distributed to twenty percent of the undergraduate and graduate students. The general survey was designed to: (1) assess student attitudes toward GLB students, faculty, and staff; (2) document students' acceptance of certain types of discrimination or harassment; (3) assess student knowledge about GLB individuals and related issues; and (4) determine the proportion of students who were gay, lesbian or bisexual. The second survey, referred to as the select survey, was distributed through various GLB networks and other student organizations. The select survey primarily focused on the nature, site, frequency, and effects of harassment and discrimination. The surveys were also designed to provide baseline information for the evaluation of any future interventions. The general and select surveys are included in Appendices A and B.

Numerous methodological decisions needed to be made before developing the surveys. These tasks included (1) developing a behaviorally-oriented definition of the University's obligation to GLB students; (2) defining which types of behaviors to study and how to measure their impact; (3) developing a method to identify sexual orientation; (4) planning how to use information collected from both random and non-random sampling; (5) deciding on a GLB reference group; (6) measuring students' knowledge of GLB issues; and (7) developing ways to place GLB harassment in context. These decisions shaped much of the content of the survey and are discussed in detail in the following sections.

The University's Obligation

Legally, the University is required to create and maintain an environment that is free from discrimination. Therefore, it was necessary to focus part of the survey on harassing or discriminatory behaviors. The items on discrimination documented specific behaviors, often without reference to the motive of the offender. These items clearly address the legal responsibilities of the University. Having addressed the University's minimum responsibilities, it was necessary to examine the less tangible elements that are necessary for a healthy academic atmosphere. Although the University is not responsible for any individual prejudices that students may harbor, students' private feelings and attitudes have an important influence on the campus atmosphere. To help evaluate this atmosphere, a series of items on attitudes and student comfort were developed. These items examined how comfortable GLB and heterosexual students felt when interacting with one another. Of particular interest was the acceptance of discrimination or harassment by other students. While many students would not initiate an incident themselves, their tacit acceptance of such an occurrence creates an atmosphere where such incidents are likely to happen.

The Nature and Impact of Harassment

Based on information from the Committee, the most common instances of harassment on campus were not overt and often were quite subtle. Therefore, the surveys did not primarily focus on blatant acts of violence, but instead asked students to report instances of harassment that were more common. The questions studied harassment in the context of students' daily lives in settings such as classrooms, campus housing and administrative offices. Questions pertaining to the frequency of harassment were included on both the general and select surveys.

Knowing that discriminatory behaviors occur on campus does not give much information on the impact of such events on the participants. The select survey attempted to address this by asking about the impact of each type of harassment as well as its frequency. These items were not included on the general survey because they would have been inappropriate for the majority of the respondents.

Identification of Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Students

Identifying students' sexual orientation appeared to be a relatively simple task. To ensure that students understood what was meant by the phrase "sexual orientation," the surveys defined it as "having to do with the gender of the people to whom one is romantically or sexually attracted. Current social descriptions of sexual orientations include lesbian women, gay men, bisexual men and women, and heterosexual men and women." Students were then asked to select the best description of their sexual orientation (i.e., being primarily attracted to members of the same or opposite gender, both genders, neither gender, or unsure). However, student-supplied classifications do not adequately address the difference between students' sexual identities and their actual behavior. To augment students' description of their sexual orientation, students were asked if they had engaged in sex with members of their own or opposite gender during the last year or ever in their lifetime. This information was needed to study those respondents whose identity did not correspond to their behavior.

Random vs. Non-Random Sampling

Information from GLB students was collected in the randomly-distributed general survey, but the questions generally were focused on heterosexual students. Because the population of GLB students could not be identified, non-random sampling was required for the select survey. Since the results of the select survey could not be considered representative, questions on the select survey were primarily designed to document individuals' experiences. For the purpose of comparison about one-third of the questions were identical with the general survey. On the remaining items, much more emphasis was placed on open-ended questions.

Writing Questions About Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual People

A recurrent problem in developing survey questions was defining a referent group -- should the questions refer to gay, lesbian or bisexual people separately or all of them as a single group? Homophobic men might respond entirely differently to a question referring to gay friends than they would to one referring to lesbian friends. Asking each question with regard to each group, however, would have created a tediously long and repetitive questionnaire. Splitting the sample was one possibility, but would have markedly increased the required sample size. During field testing interviews, it was found that the respondents generally referred an item to the group towards which there was the greatest emotional impact (i.e., homophobia). As a result, most questions referred to GLB students as a single group. Several items were targeted to specific referents (e.g., gay teaching assistants) for the purpose of examining this assumption.

Knowledge About Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Issues

One of the purposes of the study was to examine the relationship between homophobia and knowledge of GLB-related issues. If students who knew less about GLB people were more homophobic, more emphasis could be placed on education and awareness programs. In developing items to test this knowledge, it was found that many of the issues were a matter of controversy even among experts in the field. Because of this and the difficulty in developing non-trivial knowledge items, several questions on the survey had no correct answer.

Creating Comparisons

Although no amount of harassment and discrimination can be accepted as tolerable, many people wanted to know how this campus compared to other campuses and how the harassment of GLB students compared to the harassment of other groups. To assist in this comparison, several questions from other campus surveys were incorporated into UCSC's survey. However, the questions often needed rewording and their formats were changed. This made direct item-by-item comparisons with other campuses impossible. Thus comparisons must be made based on general summaries.

To compare the incidence of harassment of GLB students with the incidence of sexual harassment, a question on sexual harassment was included on the general survey. The question did not include reference to the term "sexual harassment," but was worded to closely match the University's definition. Inclusion of one item was insufficient to draw any conclusions on the frequency, types, and impacts of sexual harassment relative to GLB harassment, but it did enable general comparison.

RESULTS

The surveys were administered during the fall of 1988 and the Committee's report and recommendations to the Chancellor will be released during the 1989-90 academic year. The results section of the paper will discuss: (1) the characteristics of the sample; (2) the number of GLB students at UC Santa Cruz; (3) the campus atmosphere which includes the academic and social atmosphere, student and housing services, and harassment and discrimination; (4) homophobia and related behaviors including how it was assessed, its prevalence and distribution, its relationship with education, and the number and characteristics of people with severe homophobia; (5) the findings of this study compared with other campus' surveys; and (6) the use of specific and general referent groups.

Characteristics of the Sample

The general survey was mailed to 2000 randomly selected students of which 733 were returned (36.6%). The select survey was distributed through existing GLB networks, personal contacts and through a campus advertisement to self-identified, self-selected GLB students. One-hundred-and-twelve select surveys were returned.

The students who returned the general survey were fairly representative of the UCSC student population in terms of their residential college, age, ethnicity, and major. Seniors were somewhat overrepresented (19 percent of the population, 27 percent of the sample) as were women (53 percent of the population, 61 percent of the sample). All of the percentages cited in this paper are based on responses from the unadjusted sample. The average sampling error across all items on the general survey was about 1.55 percent. This means that for ninety-five percent of the questions the actual percentage of the population will be within three percentage points of the percentage reported for the sample.

The students who responded to the select survey did not appear to be similar to the GLB students who responded to the general survey. Half of the students who returned the select survey were affiliated with the two residential colleges with the highest proportion of GLB students (based on the results from the general survey). The number of GLB students who responded to each survey were about the same: 112 people on the select survey and 103 GLB students on the general survey. About one-fourth of the GLB students who returned the select survey were sent the random survey (their return rate was about seventy-five percent). Since the respondents to the select survey did not appear to be demographically representative, more emphasis was placed on the quantitative results of the general survey. For this reason, the average sampling error could not be calculated for the select survey.

The Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community at UCSC

Nine percent of the male students identified themselves as being primarily attracted to people of their own sex as did eight percent of the female students. Six percent of all respondents identified themselves as being attracted to people of both sexes (four percent of the males and eight percent of the females). These percentages are probably over-estimated as GLB students were probably more likely to respond to the survey than were heterosexual students. Based on the percentages from the survey, approximately 1,450 students of the 9,784 students enrolled for the 1989 fall term are gay, lesbian or bisexual.

The Committee was interested in the difference between students' sexual behaviors and their sexual identities. An analysis of those students who described themselves as heterosexual revealed the significance of those concerns. Ten percent of the heterosexual males reported having had sex with a male at least once and four percent had sex with a male within the last year. Similarly, fifteen percent of the heterosexual women reported having had sex with a woman at one time and four percent had done so within the last year.

Similar complexities were uncovered when examining the behaviors of gay and lesbian students. Two-thirds of the gay students reported having had sex with a woman in the last year and over forty percent of the lesbian students reported having had sex with a man in the last year. In addition, thirty percent of the gay and lesbian students reported never having had sex with a same sex partner.

All subsequent analyses of the survey use only the self-descriptive categories. The purpose for examining sexual behavior was to provide further information on students who were unsure of their sexual identity. No further effort was made to study whether students needed assistance in exploring or evaluating sexual alternatives.

It is difficult to compare the proportion of GLB students at UC Santa Cruz to other campuses. The studies at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Rutgers University, and the University of Illinois were not designed to address this question. Never-the-less, general estimates of about ten percent were cited in two of the reports.

Campus Atmosphere

A wide range of questions were asked about students' perceptions of the general campus atmosphere as it related to GLB issues. In reviewing this information, it is important to keep in mind that only forty percent of the students, heterosexual and homosexual students alike, were aware of UCSC's policy regarding sexual orientation. The results of these questions are summarized in four areas: academic atmosphere, social atmosphere, student services and housing, and harassment and discrimination.

Academic Atmosphere

Two general facets of the academic atmosphere were explored: intellectual freedom and freedom from sexual harassment. Questions on both issues were asked on the general and select surveys.

On the general survey, only two students (0.3%) reported changing or avoiding an academic project related to sexual orientation because of an instructor's discouragement (none were reported by GLB students). On the select survey however, 11 percent of the respondents reported such incidents and 20 percent reported they changed a project because they feared the instructor would disapprove.

On the general survey, one-fourth of the GLB students said that they had attended classes where the instructor ignored GLB-related issues when they were appropriate to discuss. In contrast, this was reported by only five percent of the heterosexual students. On the select survey, half of the respondents said this had happened in their classes. In addition, over ten percent of the GLB students said they felt they were penalized (e.g., weaker evaluations, less attention) in a class for being homosexual.

A similar disparity was seen on the question having to do with anti-gay, anti-lesbian or anti-bisexual remarks in the classroom. Five percent of the heterosexual students reported that an instructor had made such remarks. Thirteen percent of the GLB students in the general survey said such remarks had been made and over a fourth of the people responding to the select survey reported occurrences. In one instance, a professor suggested that students read their papers to their wives and girlfriends before bringing the work to class. Another made jokes about gay men and had "pranced around mimicking a stereotypical gay man."

A professor or TA created an uncomfortable situation through inappropriate sexual remarks or advances for eight percent of the heterosexual students (seven percent of the men and eight percent of the women). Over ten percent of the GLB students experienced this problem -- nearly all of them were women.

Social Atmosphere

An important part of providing a comfortable social atmosphere is providing a campus environment where all students can be comfortable with and explore their own sexual identity. For GLB students, this is closely related to "outness," that is, the degree to which they feel comfortable revealing their sexual orientation to others. Several questions on both surveys explored this issue. Three-quarters of the heterosexual students reported feeling comfortable openly expressing their sexuality on campus. This compared to a little over half of the GLB students. Although there were differences between GLB and non-GLB students, each group felt equally comfortable expressing their sexuality on- and off-campus.

Gay, lesbian and bisexual students were significantly less comfortable about disclosing their sexual orientation to other people on campus -- especially male students. None of the GLB students reported keeping their sexuality a secret, but thirty percent were 'out' only to a select group (this included half of all GLB freshpersons). Thirty-six percent were 'out' to a majority of the people they knew and only thirteen percent were 'out' to everyone. The settings where GLB students felt most comfortable being 'out' were social events sponsored by gay or lesbian groups. The most difficult place to be open about one's GLB sexual orientation was in class. When asked how comfortable GLB students felt publicly expressing affection for a person of the same sex on campus, 43 percent said they were comfortable, 22 percent had mixed feelings, and 35 percent felt uncomfortable.

Openness about homosexuality is influenced by how students talk informally among themselves. Based on the general survey, about three-quarters of the students said it was discussed in a positive or neutral manner while twenty percent reported it was talked about negatively. Less than ten percent said they did not discuss the topic. Heterosexual and GLB students reported very similar percentages. Nearly a fourth of the people who returned the select survey said they heard anti-lesbian/gay jokes or slurs weekly and half reported this happened at least once a month. In addition, nearly half of the students reported seeing defaced GLB bulletins or announcements each month.

Social comfort is also related to how isolated or different a person feels. Having social contact with people who have similar interests and values is important to well-being. When asked how many gay, lesbian or bisexual people GLB students knew, three-quarters of them responded "many," and no one said "none." Half of the GLB students said they belonged to an organization that serves the GLB community and three-fourths of the students had attended a social event sponsored by such an organization.

Student Services and Housing

There was little evidence that University staff deliberately treated GLB students differently than other students; however, over ten percent of the GLB students reported difficulty working with a heterosexual non-teaching staff member. One student commented that "in some offices you just would not dream about mentioning that you were gay." Gay, lesbian and bisexual students reported having trouble finding satisfactory counseling on campus. Over a fourth said they met resistance or were unable to receive counseling on issues related to sexual orientation. There were very few complaints with health care services although one woman commented that several of her friends had experienced difficulty with specific practitioners.

With regard to housing, only one GLB student reported being refused on-campus housing because of his sexual orientation. Finding roommates that students felt comfortable with was more of a problem. About twenty percent of the people on the select survey and ten percent of the GLB students on the general survey said they had a difficult time finding comfortable living arrangements on campus. Thirty percent of the GLB students said they felt uncomfortable in on-campus housing because of their sexual orientation compared to only seven percent who lived off-campus. Despite the difficulty in finding compatible roommates, there was no difference between the percentages of GLB and non-GLB students who lived off-campus.

When asked if their sexual orientation affected their choice of where they lived, about half said it had. Some students said they came to Santa Cruz because of its tolerant reputation. For the same reason, others chose to live in specific residential colleges. In contrast, about twenty percent of GLB students reported moving off-campus to find a more accepting environment. One student wrote, "Part of the reason I chose not to live on campus was because campus housing seemed geared to first-year, white, fresh out of their parents' house, middle- to upper-class, heterosexual students. It seemed to me like a lot of these people, having never been away from home, started doing a lot of sexual exploration in the dorms. And the whole arrangement seemed very 'boy-meets-girl.' I just didn't want to be around all that budding young drunken heterosexuality." Another said, "This year, I'm living in an all-straight (besides myself) household, and I hate it ... The most 'understanding' straight person, while being easier to be around than some homophobe, still is not the same as a gay or lesbian housemate, with whom I can talk about my experiences without having to explain everything, justify my position, or feel bad about who I am."

About half of the students agreed that unmarried couples should receive the same University benefits (e.g., housing, health care) as married couples (about thirty percent disagreed). Students made no distinction between heterosexual and homosexual couples -- the percentages were nearly identical.

Harassment and Discrimination

When students were asked how likely the chances were that a GLB student would be harassed on campus, the typical response was that it was "somewhat unlikely," but eight percent of the students said it was "very likely." Over twenty percent of the GLB students said they had concealed their sexual orientation to avoid harassment and about half said that at least once each quarter they felt pressured not to talk about their sexual identity (a third said this happens weekly). Sixteen percent of the GLB students said they feared for their physical safety on campus.

Of the specific types of harassment studied, verbal harassment was the most common. Forty percent of the GLB students reported that it had happened at least once a year and ten percent said that it happens at least once a month. The most common written comments had to do with homophobic remarks and jokes outside of class. In addition, nearly twenty percent of the GLB students said that had been sexually harassed and over ten percent reported being physically confronted in the last year. As an example, one student reported that "during Gay Pride Week ..., a group of us were harassed and spit upon by students on a balcony of a ... dorm." The same types of harassment occurred off-campus as well and with greater frequency.

When harassment related to a person's sexual orientation occurred, GLB students usually did not consult with anyone within the University. About a quarter of the students said they have talked to someone in Counseling and Psychological Services, a faculty member or residential college staff, and a third brought the problem to a GLB campus organization. The majority of students, about 75 percent, usually talked with friends about such matters. As a rule, students did not discuss the problem with the University Police, college provosts, college preceptors, or Ombudsman's Office.

Studies at other campuses found that the more open GLB students were about their orientation, the more harassment they experienced. Using information from the select survey, this was also found at Santa Cruz. Although the questionnaire was designed to examine a student's degree of "outness," no simple relationship with harassment was found. Instead, only the GLB students who reported being "out" to everyone reported significantly higher levels of harassment than those who were not (including those who were "out" to most people). These students reported greater frequencies of viewing defaced GLB announcements and bulletins, verbal harassment, physical confrontation, viewing anti-GLB graffiti, and being penalized in class. They reported off-campus harassment to a greater extent as well. As the some of the incidents these students reported are not necessarily related to being "out" (i.e., viewing defaced bulletins, viewing graffiti), greater sensitization rather than actual occurrences may have contributed to the reported differences.

Homophobia and Related Behaviors

One of the major questions addressed by the study had to do with the number of students who were markedly homonegative (having negative attitudes about homosexual people) or homophobic (fearful of homosexual people). Based on responses of heterosexual students to specific items on the general survey, it appeared that there were relatively few students whose attitudes and feelings created behavioral problems. However, creation of a scale of survey questions that described a wider range of behaviors allowed us to examine the phenomenon more closely.

Measuring Homophobia

To create a scale of homophobia, the items that described potentially problematic attitudes and behaviors were linearly combined. Items which were binary (e.g., item 29) were assigned a maximum value of five and a minimum value of one so that their variances would be similar to items employing five point scales. The items which did not correlate well with the scale as a whole were dropped from the composite. The items with the highest internal consistency contained seventeen items. These items were used to define homophobia. The items and their correlation with the total scale score are displayed in Table 1. The internal consistency of the scale, computed using KR-20, was .90.

Previous studies have made the distinction between homophobia (the fear of homosexual people) and homonegativity (having negative attitudes about homosexual people). This distinction was useful in developing a range of attitudinal and behavioral items. Homonegative and homophobic items were analyzed to examine whether these sets of items behaved differently. Using alpha factor analysis and several nonorthogonal rotation methods, the data were examined for evidence of more than one factor. A strong single factor emerged and no robust second factor was found. The difference between homophobia and homonegativity, although conceptually useful, was not substantiated by our data.

The seventeen items in the measure of homophobia created a scale that ranged in value from 17 to 85. The mean score on this scale was 32.5 and the standard deviation of the scores was 12.3. The distribution of the scores was markedly skewed to the right and ranged from 17 to 78. The percentile ranges for the scores are displayed in Table 2.

Homophobia and Demographic Differences

There was a great amount of interest in group differences on the homophobia scale. Demographic characteristics of interest included academic level, ethnicity, gender and residential college. Significant differences were found between groups for all these characteristics. Freshpersons were considerably more homophobic than other groups and the scores continued to decline as students progressed (freshpersons, 35.5; sophomores, 31.9; juniors, 32.0; seniors, 30.8; graduate students, 30.5). Asian and Hispanic students were significantly more homophobic than Caucasian students (Caucasian, 31.5; Asian, 38.8; Hispanic, 40.7). Male students were found to score considerably higher than female students (35.0 vs. 30.8), and mean scores of the residential colleges ranged from 29.3 to 35.4.

Several two-way analyses-of-variance were conducted to examine further the relationships among the demographic characteristics and homophobia. There was no relationship between homophobia, academic level and gender -- this implies that male and female attitudes change due to education at about the same rate (there was no significant correlation between homophobia and age). There were no interactions found between residential college and either ethnicity or gender. This suggests the college living environment did not play an important role in homophobia.

When comparing homophobia scores by gender and ethnic group, a significant interaction was found. The principal cause of the interaction was an extremely high mean for Hispanic women (43.8 compared to 30.8 for women overall and 37.6 for Hispanic males). Further investigation showed that religious beliefs accounted for much of this finding. The Hispanic students in this study agreed with church-related moral sanctions against homosexuality to a much greater extent than did other students. The correlation between acceptance of church beliefs and homophobia was .69 for those students whose religion considers homosexuality to be immoral.

Homophobia and Education

The relationship between homophobia and demographic characteristics is interesting, but generally these variables are outside of the institution's area of responsibility. From the viewpoint of developing policy, a more interesting question was whether students who had attended lectures, seminars or courses discussing GLB issues were less homophobic. Students who were exposed to any kind of GLB-related instruction were compared to those who were not. The students who had received instruction were significantly less homophobic (participants, 28.9; nonparticipants, 32.9). Since exposure to instruction is related to the academic level and college, two two-way analyses of variance were undertaken. No interactions between academic level or residential college and receiving information were found. Thus, the survey produced indirect evidence that instruction and discussion reduced homophobia. In addition, the effect of instruction was uniform for men and women and across all ethnic groups. Receiving information on GLB issues accounted for about two percent of the variance of the homophobia scores.

Formal classroom instruction was only one way in which students were exposed to GLB information. Contact with other students on campus was also a very important source of information. There was a substantial relationship between the number of GLB people a heterosexual student knew and homophobia. In addition, how well a student knew a GLB individual was also strongly related to their homophobia. Table 3 shows the average homophobia scores for the responses to the two survey items on personal contact. Both findings suggest that campus awareness programs may be useful in reducing homophobia.

Evidence for the relationship between knowledge of GLB issues and homophobia was provided from an item on sexual assault. Although there was a correct answer, there was a strong association between the estimated frequency of assaults by GLB people on children and homophobia scores. Table 4 shows the average homophobia scores for people selecting each response option for the item on sexual assault.

How many people do you know who would describe themselves as lesbian, gay or bisexual?

Which of the following best describes your relationship to the lesbian, gay, or bisexual person you know best?

Approximately what share of sexual assaults on children are committed by gay men, lesbians and bisexuals?

Severely Homophobic Students

One of the main purposes of this study was to document the amount and nature of harassment of GLB students. A key in understanding this issue was to develop a profile of students who were most likely to initiate this harassment. A cluster analysis of student responses to items describing homophobic behaviors identified two specific groups: a severely homophobic cluster and the remainder of the students. A three cluster solution produced two groups of highly homophobic students, but the difference between the groups was not meaningful. The highly homophobic group consisted of the highest scoring seven percent (those who scored 56 or higher) on the homophobia scale. These individuals constituted the extreme tail of the distribution and were about two standard deviations above the mean.

Forty-one students (24 male, 17 female) were classified as severely homophobic. There were no differences between this group and the other survey respondents in academic level or college affiliation. However, like the population, differences between men and women, and between ethnic groups were found. Based on the percentage of students who appear to be severely homophobic, the total number of students on campus with similar levels of homophobia will approach 700 this fall.

Table 5 shows the difference between the severely homophobic group and the remainder of the heterosexual respondents on items related to comfort and behavior when interacting with homosexual people. The homophobic students' average was between one and two standard deviations above the nonhomophobic students' average on every item. In spite of the large differences, it is difficult to infer that these people are more prone to overt harassment. Many of their responses fall in the midrange of possible responses, neither likely nor unlikely, and, since many of the items are attitudinal, inferences about actual behavior must be made cautiously.

There were predictable differences between the homophobic students and the nonhomophobic students. Thirty percent of the severely homophobic students reported not knowing any GLB people compared to only eight percent of the nonhomophobic group. Only five percent of these students have a close relationship with a GLB person. In contrast, nearly half of the nonhomophobic students said they knew at least one GLB person well. The same percentage of homophobic students had attended workshops, lectures and other events as students in the general population. This finding suggests that for students with extreme homophobia, providing information may not be an effective way of changing their attitudes.

Comparisons with Other Campus Surveys

Although determining the nature and amount of harassment that occurred on campus was the study's primary purpose, comparison with other campuses helps put the results into perspective. Normative comparison is quite difficult because there are few sources of data. At Santa Cruz, the CIRP Annual Freshman Survey has been used to compare our campus with other colleges and universities. Since 1977, CIRP has asked incoming freshpersons whether or not they agree that laws should be enacted to limit homosexual activity. Relatively few Santa Cruz freshpersons have expressed agreement with this item. The national average from 1977 to 1988 was 40.1% compared to the Santa Cruz average of 11.2%. This is a highly significant difference (t = 23.45, df = 22, p < .001). Although this item is not a direct measure of homophobia, endorsement would certainly be consistent with high levels of homophobia. One interpretation of this finding is that fewer homophobic students enter Santa Cruz which creates a less homophobic atmosphere on campus. The 1988 Freshman survey showed that 10.5 percent of the Santa Cruz freshpersons agreed that such laws should be enacted -- only slightly more than the 8.4 percent of first-year students who were classified as severely homophobic in this study.

Compared with the three campuses that conducted their own studies (Rutgers University, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Santa Cruz had fewer harassment problems. This is not to say that problems did not exist. A significant number of GLB students still fear for their safety, view anti-gay and anti-lesbian graffiti, and feel they need to hide their sexual identities from their peers. The campus may have relatively few overt incidents of GLB discrimination and still be uncomfortable for gay, lesbian and bisexual students.

Using Specific Reference Groups

Four items on the survey did not use the generic term "gay, lesbian or bisexual" and instead referred to either a gay man or a lesbian woman. If the use of a general referent disguised meaningful differences between male and female responses, the results from items using the generic term could be called into question.

Only one question refers to lesbian women ("I would feel uncomfortable knowing that my professor was a lesbian"). On this item, there was no difference between the average responses of heterosexual men and women (4.66 for men and 4.70 for women where one meant agree and five meant disagree). For the highly homophobic students, the men reported that they would feel significantly more uncomfortable than the women (the average scores were 2.79 for men and 3.06 for women).

On the items referring to gay men, differences between the responses of heterosexual men and women were more pronounced. Table 6 summarizes the differences. As expected, the average responses of men were higher than women, but it was necessary to test whether the averages were significantly higher than items with a generic referent.

A two-way mixed analysis of variance (gender) with repeated measures (type of GLB referent) was performed on the average item scores to test whether there was an interaction between an item's referent (gay male, lesbian, or general GLB) and the gender of the respondent. A test of the interaction between gender and referent was not significant (F = 1.76; df = 2, 1112; p = .173). This means that difference between men and women's average scores were about the same regardless of the referent. Significant differences were found between the three types of items (F = 168.70; df = 2, 1112; p < .001). These differences could be due to differences in the item's content as well as the item's referent.

DISCUSSION

How Much Harassment Was There?

The general and select surveys had a common set of items and the results obtained from GLB students on these questions were often quite different. The results from the select survey always showed greater levels of harassment than did the general survey. One reason for this difference may be how each survey was distributed. The general survey was sent out to a random sample while the select survey was distributed through GLB-related organizations. The GLB students who answered the general survey were similar demographically to those who answered the select survey. However, the students responding to the select survey may have viewed the survey more as a political instrument or been more sensitive to harassment.

Although the level of harassment found was fairly low, the incidence of harassment may have been overstated due to some GLB students attributing their problems to their sexual orientation instead of other personal characteristics.

Things That Didn't Work

The relationship between knowledge of GLB issues and homophobic behaviors was difficult to establish because of the limited utility of the knowledge questions. There were no differences on these items between students who had attended classes and seminars and those who had not nor were there differences between GLB and heterosexual students. Without a subject matter expert, these questions were difficult to create (only two had a correct answers). To examine this relationship more closely, more items of higher quality will be required.

It is generally considered sound practice to reverse the scaling of items to help assure that the respondents read each question carefully. In analyzing the homophobia scale, it became apparent that the items which were reverse scaled did not correlate as highly with the scale score as did the other items. In this case, it appears that reverse scaling of these items may have confused the students.

The select survey attempted to assess the personal impact of different types of harassment. Examination of this data revealed that the average impact score correlated very closely with the frequency of the incidents. Since the two were so similar, the analyses focused only on the frequency data. Either the respondents did not understand the item in the way it was intended or personal impact was a simple function of frequency. Either way, this data did not add any additional information.

Campus Reactions to the Survey

The survey was cited in the student newspaper several times. Articles written by representatives of student GLB organizations criticized the study for two reasons. One author felt that the monies used to fund the survey should have been given directly to the student organizations. Efforts by "the administration" to study GLB issues were not viewed positively. Another article said that making the issues more salient would probably raise the level of homophobia on campus.

Each respondent was asked to evaluate the survey. About eighty-five percent of the people who returned the general survey said the survey addressed their concerns. The same percentage of respondents reacted positively to the select survey.

Future Research

An underlying assumption of the survey was that the use of a general referent (i.e., GLB persons) would not significantly affect the results of the survey. Plasek and Allard cited this assumption as a fundamental flaw of previous research. The justification for its use in this study was the reaction of a limited number of students on whom the instrument was field tested. Since using a general referent has the potential for confounding the results, it is important that further study be made of its use. Because of its intended purpose, this study could not provide much information about this issue.

Topics not addressed in the study were mentioned in students' written comments. A few heterosexual students felt that exclusion from GLB organizations, social functions and services constituted a form of discrimination. Several students reported wanting to join, but felt unwelcome. Thus items on heterophobia, the fear and distrust of heterosexual people, might have been included on the select survey. Such items would not necessarily focus on pathological distrust; they would be similar to the items on comfort developed for the general survey. While heterophobia may not be a major problem, it could help to identify GLB students who are having trouble adapting to their environment.

Several students commented that the survey did not place enough emphasis on the social atmosphere as it is perceived by heterosexual students. They said that they were completely unaware of any of the issues discussed in the survey or had never thought about them. A number of students felt that there needed to be items about how GLB students were viewed by heterosexual students. For example, several students thought GLB students were unduly powerful because they were politically active and outspoken. Others thought the peer pressure to be open and liberal prompted students to experiment with alternatives to heterosexuality.

IMPLICATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The Chancellor's Committee on Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Community Concerns will be issuing its report on the survey during the 1989-90 academic year. The Committee's report will focus on the implications of this survey for University policies and programs. The comments which follow are not necessarily the conclusions of the Committee.

One of the primary purposes for undertaking this survey was to document the nature, extent and effects of GLB harassment and discrimination at UCSC. Compared to other campuses, the amount of harassment was quite low. Never-the-less, any harassment related to a person's sexual orientation is unacceptable. Very few instances of institutionalized discrimination were found. Of these, reports of anti-gay, anti-lesbian or anti-bisexual remarks by faculty members and teaching assistants were most common. As a step in addressing this problem, the Office of the Academic Vice Chancellor might wish to review the frequency and content of information given to the faculty which discusses UCSC policy with respect to sexual orientation. In addition, deans or board chairs may wish to discuss with the faculty that their responsibility to discuss important intellectual perspectives includes issues related to sexual orientation when appropriate.

Only forty percent of the students surveyed knew about UCSC's policy regarding sexual orientation. After the survey was developed last year, statements of the policy were distributed campuswide to the students and faculty. The campus should work to ensure that department heads, board chairs, residence assistants, etc. are encouraged to periodically remind their constituents about the policy.

The creation of a grievance procedure last year laid the foundation for dealing with violations of the University's sexual orientation policy. However, the survey showed that GLB students were reluctant to report incidents of harassment to University officials. Because the procedures are new, the Committee, the Ombudsman's Office, and the Office of Student Services should work to ensure that all students are aware of the grievance process. In addition, they should examine any barriers which limit its use (e.g., meet with GLB student groups to discuss harassment and grievance procedures).

A sizeable majority of the students supported adding courses to the curriculum on topics related to sexual orientation. By implication, there was also support for greater integration of GLB issues into existing courses (when appropriate). The campus should discuss how integration of GLB issues can best be approached.

The student service requiring greatest attention was counseling support. Last year, representatives of the Committee met with the staff of Counseling and Psychological Services about these concerns. As a result, all of the counselors received training on GLB issues and several new workshops on exploring sexuality were developed. These new programs should be evaluated to determine if the needs of GLB students are being met.

As a group, heterosexual freshpersons reported fairly high levels of homophobia. Although significant differences in homophobia were found between residential colleges, no college or group of colleges should be targeted due to the changing populations within the colleges and the likelihood of stigmatization. The colleges and Office of Student Services should review current freshperson orientation programs with reference to discussions of sexual orientation. In addition, the possibility of developing additional orientation or advising materials for new GLB students should be discussed. This could assist students in learning about resources, social organizations and coursework of interest.

A significant proportion of the students who live on-campus reported feeling uncomfortable. This discomfort could be especially difficult for freshpersons as eighty percent live on-campus (compared to twenty-five percent of students at other academic levels). To help address this problem, the training programs for residence hall supervisors should be evaluated each year. In addition, all housing units should consider sponsoring sensitivity workshops for students living on campus.

Another need identified in the survey was for a resource center and social gathering place on campus. Since the survey was conducted, a resource center has been developed near Merrill College. It will be important to evaluate how well this new space meets the needs of the students in terms of its location, services, space, and staffing.

Gay, lesbian and bisexual faculty, staff and students have often been overlooked in University planning. It will be important to continue to collect information on sexual orientation and related issues. The campus should periodically examine the need for future campuswide and programmatic evaluations. Careful monitoring of the effects of new policies and programs is necessary to judge their effectiveness. It will be important to document UCSC's progress toward developing a campus free of harassment.

REFERENCES

MacDonald, A. P., & Games, R. G. (1974). Some characteristics of those who hold positive and negative attitudes toward homosexuals. Journal of Homosexuality, 1(1), 9-27.

Plasek, J. W. & Allard, J. (1984) Misconceptions of homophobia. Journal of Homosexuality, 11(1), 24-37.

Rutgers University (1987). Rutgers sexual orientation survey: A report on the experiences of lesbian, gay, and bisexual members of the Rutgers community.

Spees, E. (1987). College students sexual attitudes and behaviors 1974-85: A review of the literature. Journal of College Student Personnel, 28(2), 135-140.

Stanley, W. (1984). Rights of students with alternate lifestyles. Journal of College and University Law, 10(3), 397-418.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst (1985). The consequences of being gay: A report on the quality of life for lesbian, gay and bisexual students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1987). Chancellor's task force on sexual orientation.

APPENDICES

Appendix A - Cover Letter and General Survey (Results reported as percentages)

Appendix B - Cover Letter and Select Survey (Results reported as percentages)

November 4, 1988

Dear UC Santa Cruz Student:

You have been selected .... No! Please pay attention!! This is something really different!! It's interesting and important!

The enclosed survey is designed to learn about students' attitudes, feelings, and behaviors toward gay, lesbian, and bisexual people on campus. This is your opportunity to tell the Chancellor how you feel about issues of sexual orientation. Your responses will help us to develop campus policies to address any possible problems.

Because we are contacting only a small number of randomly selected students, it is very important that we hear from you. The survey should take about 15 minutes to fill out. We encourage you to answer the survey before discussing it with your friends as it is important that your responses are not influenced by other people's opinions. We suggest that you fill this out in a private place so that you feel comfortable answering questions that you might consider personal. All of the information will be kept confidential, and we have no way of knowing which survey came from which student. Even if you do not intend to complete the survey, please take a moment to look over the questions.

If you are gay, lesbian, or bisexual, we hope you will also fill out a second survey which has been developed to learn more about your campus experiences. Your help in answering both surveys will be especially appreciated. The Select Survey can be picked up at the Student Services office at 146 Hahn, the Student Activities Center A-Frame, or at Student Health Services. You can request that a copy be mailed to your home by phoning Student Services at 429-4446.

After completing the survey, please fold the completed form in half and tape or staple the ends together before putting the postage-paid form in the mail. Please complete and return the survey by November 23. Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,

Kyle Arndt	Nancy Shaw
Chairperson, Student Union Assembly	Chair, Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Lesbian Community Concerns
Julie Butler	Scottland Jacobson
Core Council, Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Network	Core Council, Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Network

In this survey, when we say sexual orientation, we mean the following:

9) How many people do you know who would describe themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual? Please circle the most appropriate answer.

10) Which of the following best describes your relationship to the lesbian, gay, or bisexual person you know best?

Please answer the following questions by checking the response you think is most correct.

11) Approximately what proportion of the adult U.S. population has had at least one homosexual experience?

12) Approximately what share of sexual assaults on children are committed by gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals?

13) Worldwide, which of the following is most responsible for the spread of the AIDS virus?

14) Which of the following most closely approximates the current UCSC campus policy regarding diversity in sexual orientation?

15) Which of the following is the primary cause of homosexuality?

16) What are the chances that a gay or lesbian student will be harassed on campus because of his or her sexual orientation?

17) Since coming to the University of California, Santa Cruz...

(Please mark all that apply)

For items 26 and 27, please circle the best response.

26) In general, how are matters of homosexuality discussed on campus?

27) How comfortable do you feel in openly expressing your own sexuality?

28) How likely are you to act in the following ways?

29) If someone of my own sex indicated that they might be interested in a romantic or sexual relationship with me, I would feel
(mark as many as apply):

30) How have your attitudes toward gay, lesbian, and bisexual people changed since coming to UC Santa Cruz?
Please circle the most appropriate response.

31) Please circle the response that most closely approximates how deeply you have examined matters of your own sexual orientation.

32) Which of the following comes closest to describing your sexual orientation?

33) Have you engaged in sex?

34) Please indicate if you have ever attended a course, lecture or workshop on gay, lesbian, bisexual issues or concerns.
Mark as many as apply.

35) Compared to the campus' current offerings, how many courses, workshops, or lectures on gay, lesbian, and bisexual issues should UCSC offer?

36) Does your religion consider homosexual activity to be immoral?

37) If you answered yes on the previous question (Question 36), how closely do your views on homosexuality correspond with those of your religion?
Please circle the letter that most closely applies to you.

For the items in this section, circle the responses that most closely describe you.

45) Has this survey adequately addressed your concerns and attitudes regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual students and staff at UCSC?

Please use the following space to comment on issues related to sexual orientation at UC Santa Cruz. 38% replied which included the following groups of comments:

If you are gay, lesbian, or bisexual, an additional survey is being distributed through the Office of Student Services and several campus student organizations. Refer to the cover letter for more information.

November 7, 1988

Dear UC Santa Cruz Student,

Thank you for your cooperation and willingness to answer the Select Survey on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Issues. This survey is an integral part of a campuswide study of the experiences of gay, lesbian and bisexual people at UC Santa Cruz. Your responses will be of critical importance; they will help us to document the nature, frequency, and effects of harassment and discrimination related to sexual orientation, as well as assist in the development of campus policies to address the problems that may exist.

We encourage you to answer the survey before discussing it with your friends as it is important that your responses are not influenced by other people's opinions. We suggest that you fill this out in a private place so that you feel comfortable answering questions that you might consider personal. All of the information will be kept confidential, and we have no way of knowing which survey came from which student. Also, if you have additional concerns about gay, lesbian and bisexual student life at UCSC, please feel free to contact the Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Community Concerns.

We hope to reach a significant proportion of bisexual, gay, and lesbian students through this survey. Please encourage other students to obtain a copy this questionnaire. Additional copies of the survey can be picked up at the Student Services office at 146 Hahn, the Student Activities Center A-Frame, or at Student Health Services. A copy of the survey will be mailed to your home by phoning Student Services at 429-4446.

At the end of this survey there are a series of questions which ask for written responses. If you need more space to answer these questions, please feel free to insert additional pages. After completing the survey, please fold the completed form in half and tape or staple the ends together before putting the postage-paid form in the mail. Please complete and return the survey by November 23. Thank you very much for your help.

Sincerely,

Kyle Arndt Chairperson, Student Union Assembly	Nancy Shaw Chair, Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Lesbian Community Concerns
Julie Butler Core Council, Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Network	Scottland Jacobson Core Council, Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Network

In this survey, when we say sexual orientation, we mean the following:

9) How many people do you know who would describe themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual?
Please circle the most appropriate answer.

10) Are you a member of an organization that serves gay, lesbian, or bisexual people?

11) In the last year, have you attended any events sponsored by campus gay, lesbian, or bisexual organizations?

12) Please circle the response that most closely approximates how deeply you have examined matters of your own sexual orientation. Please circle the most appropriate answer.

13) Which of the following comes closest to describing your sexual orientation?

14) Have you engaged in sex?

15) Which of the following most closely describes the extent to which others, in general, know of your sexual orientation?

16) Does your religion consider homosexual activity to be immoral?

17) If you answered "yes" on the previous question (Question 16), how closely do your views on homosexuality correspond with those of your religion?
Please circle the letter that most closely applies to you.

18) Since coming to UC Santa Cruz, have you experienced any of the following associated with your sexual orientation?