Campus “Gay Point Average”

Excerpted from Campus Gay Point Average, by Sarah Schweitzer, published Aug 25, 2006, on Boston.com:

The Advocate, the national newsmagazine for gays and lesbians, published a 389-page book this month listing the 100 schools that it says offer the best discrimination protection, most friendly climate, and most extensive campus services for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered students…
MIT, for one, made the top 100. The school is cited for having one of the nation’s oldest gay and lesbian student groups and for early on including both sexual orientation and gender identity in its nondiscrimination policy, yielding what the book, The Advocate College Guide, calls a high “gay point average.”

…The book arrives as surveys show that more gay and lesbian students are coming out at younger ages, often in high school, placing the climate of a college campus at the forefront of more students’ minds as they select schools.

…The book … identified a top 20, including Tufts University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Since 1992, the Princeton Review, has ranked the 20 schools that it considers the most and the least “gay community accepted.” This year, the review ranked New York University as most gay friendly and Notre Dame as most inhospitable.