Gay at Princeton

My longtime companion of 15 years, a Princeton alum (a well-known professor of philosophy), cannot speak for himself in this matter, so I shall.

It is all well and good that Princeton this year is hosting its first LGBT alumni conference. But therein lies the rub. Why has it taken until 2013? I can assure you that Princeton made being gay a four-year social and political nightmare for gay students in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s.

What is needed is not a conference. What is needed is moral repair and reparations — a public acknowledgement of, and apology for, the University’s past moral crimes, and a public identification of those professors, administrators, and student leaders who over the past decades made Princeton a hostile, and often unsafe, environment for its gay and lesbian students.