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By Carrie Wells, The Baltimore Sun

Morgan State University has opened an investigation into a student's allegation that members of a fraternity he wanted to join rejected him because he is gay.

Brian Stewart said he dreamed of joining Morgan's chapter of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity and thought members would be impressed by his academic accomplishments — Stewart said he was a White House intern — but he was rejected the day after his interview.

He believes it is because of his sexual orientation, citing social-media messages using an anti-gay slur that someone sent him and told him were between fraternity members.

"I couldn't even be angry because I was so hurt," he said.

Members of the fraternity chapter and the national organization did not respond to requests for comment.

A Morgan State spokesman, Jarrett Carter Sr., said the university opened an investigation into Stewart's allegation after he lodged a complaint last week.

"The university doesn't tolerate or accept any kind of discrimination," Carter said. "It's something that the university takes very very seriously."

Carter said that discrimination — in Greek life or elsewhere — is against university policy and that those found in violation can face disciplinary action after a review by a panel of students, faculty and staff.

Stewart, a 20-year-old senior business major, said he wanted to join Kappa Alpha Psi — Morgan's chapter is called Alpha Iota — because his pastor and mentor from his youth was a member. He said he grew up poor in Annapolis and that his mentor had a major influence on his life.

"What he offered to me, I wanted the ability to offer that to someone else," Stewart said.

Stewart said he is no longer interested in pledging the fraternity but that he filed a complaint because he wanted to raise awareness.

"I didn't know I was going to have no control — that my interview meant nothing, my achievements meant nothing, because they had already made up their minds," Stewart said.

cwells@baltsun.com

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from "The Middlebury Campus"
Middlebury College

(Not So) Safe Space

by Guest Contributor / op-ed (1) in Opinions / October 9, 2013

Though the researchers point that the study's sample wasn't representative of the U.S. population, the findings are potentially groundbreaking. Pew Research Center reports:

"Do conventional public opinion surveys under-report the proportion of gays and lesbians in the population? And do they underestimate the share of Americans who hold anti-gay views?

A team of researchers from Ohio State and Boston Universities say the answer to both questions is yes.

“We find substantial under-reporting of LGBT  [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] identity and behaviors as well as underreporting of anti-gay sentiment …even under anonymous and very private conditions,” the researchers wrote in a working paper just published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The study was conducted by economists Katherine B. Coffman and Lucas C. Coffman of Ohio State University and Keith M. Marzilli Ericson of Boston University

They used a novel research method that, in addition to the usual privacy and anonymity afforded by the best practice survey techniques, goes further and makes it virtually impossible to connect individual respondents with their answers to sensitive questions. They call this technique the “Veiled Report” method.

Then they compared their findings with the results obtained as part of the “Veiled Report” experiment with responses from a control group that answered questions posed in a more conventional way. Their goal was to see how social desirability bias—the tendency for people to not to reveal behaviors or attitudes that they fear may be viewed as outside the mainstream—may affect reporting on these sensitive topics..."

Read more from the Pew Research Center by clicking "Visit Website" below.