"That is what the focus of our group is--that people don't graduate from the Kennedy School without learning about gay and lesbian issues," says Carlson. "Most professors are not setting a tone that gay and lesbian issues are important."

"There are ridiculous and arcane laws that discriminate against gays and lesbians," Carlson continues. "Sodomy laws are still on the books, marriage is prohibited. If we are going to change these things, we need to know."

But Carlson is quick to add that he and the committee are not calling for affirmative action or tips for gay or lesbian applicants to the school.

"We weren't asking for preferential treatment, we weren't asking for affirmative action," Carlson says. "Recruitment should be distinguished from affirmative action. Recruitment to me means welcoming openly gay and lesbian professors and acknowledgement of the issues."

Expanding Diversity

The Kennedy School is not the only part of the University pressing for increased recruitment of gays and lesbians. For the first time, the issue took a high-profile position alongside calls for Black and women faculty hiring at Law School protests held last week.

"As sexual orientation becomes recognized as being as central to individual identity as race and gender, we'll see a lot more pressure from lesbians, gays and bisexuals," says Morris A. Ratner, an openly gay third-year law student and a member of the Coalition for Civil Rights.

Ratner says that gay students have been calling for more openly gay and lesbian faculty members for a long time, but it is only recently that these calls are being heard. Gays, lesbians and bisexuals, says Ratner, are a long way off from gaining the same acceptance as women and people of color as a "legitimate" minority group.

"It is far more acceptable to voice one's hatred for gays or lesbians than for race and gender," says Ratner. "Sexual orientation is not an established minority."

The dilemma, explains Ratner, is one of public identity.

'The Biggest Problem'

"The biggest problem is that while Black students can easily become a visible group, the traditional invisibility of gays and lesbians has presented a problem in our ability to put the pressure on," says Ratner. "It's depressing to think that gay, lesbian and bisexual issues aren't treated as seriously as race and gender issues."

At Harvard's professional schools, the call for diverse hiring is getting louder, but in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the debate on this issue, at least, has remained strangely quiet.

Few professors are speaking about it and undergraduate groups have failed to come up with a protest as vocal as the Law School's recent sit-in or a proposal as headline-grabbing as the Kennedy School's report.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Mary M. Steedly, who teaches courses on gender and sexuality, concedes that it is not an issue that gets a lot of attention at FAS.