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Groundbreaking move by Georgetown Magazine: Coming Out


As I sat down to have lunch at home just a short while ago, I grabbed my alumni magazine, which arrived yesterday or the day before, to browse through the updates of classmates.  But on the cover, there were title teasers about the articles inside.  “Coming Out” was one of them.

Immediately I thought, noooo – that can’t be an article about sexual orientation, can it? Not from the school that fought hard during the 1980s, and especially during the years I was there, to exclude a student group comprised of gays and lesbians.

It must be referring to some other kind of coming out – some new building or new program.

Well, I was wrong and very, very happy as well as surprised to find this very lengthy article on the inside, “Out on the Hilltop: LGBTQ Experiences at Georgetown.”

Now, I’ve been through this before so I apologize for the readers that know it, but the current president of GU, Jack DeGoia, is a young guy who was my RD in my sophomore year and went to my high school in Connecticut – albeit a 3-4-5 years before me.  He is the first lay person they’ve ever had as president at GU and he’s married with at least one child (I don’t know if he’s had more).

And he’s been pretty aggressive about changing the outward presentation of the university and getting it in tune with the 21st Century. So in this regard, I’m not surprised.

But GU is one of the most populus if not the most populus Catholic (Jesuit) institution of higher education in the country.  And again, as the article notes, it fought tooth and nail in the 1980s against acknowledging the student LGBT group.

I haven’t had a chance to really read it with the time it deserves, but I would encourage other people interested in how one of the oldest Catholic institutions in the U.S. has chosen to come out about coming out.

As a side note, I couldn’t help but think about that Ohio Republican Party announcement about making specific outreach efforts to Catholics.  I didn’t see that they are making such efforts with the LGBT community – but then John McCain did meet with the Log Cabin Republicans.

Also, any readers who went to or are otherwise familiar with John Carrol University, also a Jesuit institution – how does this compare to JCU’s relations with the LGBT community?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:11 pm August 1st, 2008 in Civil Rights, Culture, Education, Gender, Law, Religion, Social Issues, Writing, Youth 

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One Response to “Groundbreaking move by Georgetown Magazine: Coming Out”

  1. 1 Daniel H. on August 4th, 2008 2:11 am

    JCU’s still got a way to go, but it has made progress. It has a university-sanctioned student organization (“Allies”) that acts as a support/education/advocacy group for LGBT students. However, the university has yet to adopt an anti-discrimination clause for gay employees. The new president at JCU formerly worked at University of San Francisco and some believe such a recognition is not far off.

    The problem at a school like JCU is not necessarily about recognition of student groups or gay faculty. Rather, the student body is largely white, upper-middle class conservative Catholics. So, as you might imagine, even those students who are gay often do not acknowledge it publicly.

    What Carroll has going for it is a close-knit community whereby in time this important growth can be fostered productively. The school should also benefit from its Jesuit heritage which has often been a step ahead in promoting social change.

    Notre Dame, a school that also forbade LGBT student groups, published an alumni cover story a couple years back on gay issues entitled “The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name.” Many conservative alumni, including some with deep pockets, did not appreciate the publication. But it was an important step for a prominent leader in Catholic higher ed.

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