“I wouldn’t take milk from a gay person.”

With these words, which might seem unthinkable to today’s Harvard student, one Quincy House resident refused to use a milk carton his housemate Michael G. Colantuono ’83 had touched.

But in 1981, Colantuano and others were starting to fight these attitudes.

“It was a very fertile, very exciting, very energetic time,” says Colantuono, who was secretary of the Gay Students Association (GSA) during the 1980-81 school year.

This April, Harvard announced that it would amend its University-wide non-discrimination policy to protect “gender identity,” responding to student activism for transgender rights.

At Commencement 25 years ago, the Class of 1981 marshals distributed letters to graduates pleading with them to withhold donations to the College until the Faculty of Arts and Sciences reversed its refusal to adopt a policy of nondiscrimination toward gay students and faculty.

For an institution now noted for its liberal thinking and tolerance, the atmosphere at Harvard then for gay people was ambivalent at best. Although much of today’s tolerance can be traced back to the activism of this seminal year, 1981 was just as remarkable for its setbacks.

‘IT’S JUST NOT PREPPY’

In many respects, 1981 seems more distant a past than just 25 years.

In May 1981, two male undergraduates were assaulted for standing arm-in-arm at the Park Street T station. There were complaints from gay undergraduates who found menacing posters on their doors throughout the year, one of which reportedly said “Hitler was right: Gays should be exterminated.” And in February 1981, MIT fraternity Pi Lambda Phi organized a joke march through Harvard Square calling for the reinstatement of capital punishment for gay people. The march left a trail of severed lambs’ heads attached to leaflets with fake quotations, including one attributed to University President Derek C. Bok, which read, “Homosexuals at Harvard? It’s just not preppy.”

Benjamin H. Schatz ’81, who was then president of the GSA, recalls a very intimidating atmosphere.

“It was a very scary time,” he says, adding that gay students were often targets of both verbal attacks and projectile food in dining halls.

Colantuono, who went on to become president of the Undergraduate Assembly, tells of a casual and habitual homophobia, unthinkable at the College today.

“At that time in American society generally and in the culture of Harvard, there was still a lot of support for overt homophobic behavior,” he says.

The first of a series of contentions erupted in November 1980 when the Committee on Housing and Undergraduate Life refused to include a leaflet from the GSA in its packet distributed to registering students.

The committee avoided the issue by agreeing to send out a separate packet with information on all student groups.

“I have to say on the whole that the students were far more sympathetic than the administration,” Schatz says.

There was also an uproar when the 1981 yearbook poked fun at Adams House’s reputation as a magnet for gay undergraduates, calling it “a haven for homosexuality. Rumor has it that the [sex] ratio is one to one to one, or one to one to one too many.”

The comment was condemned by the GSA and the Adams House Committee.

The editor of the yearbook, Jared S. Corman ’81, apologized but refused to retract the statement in a letter submitted to The Crimson at the time. An apology was later issued with copies of the yearbook.

Schatz, who was an Adams resident, says he responded to the yearbook’s mischief by organizing the first-ever Adams House Drag Night. “If you want drag queens sashaying through Adams House, well, that’s what you’re going to get,” Schatz recalls thinking.

SEEDS OF CHANGE

“The difference between when I first arrived and when I left was quite astounding,” Schatz says.

“I think it was largely a time of success,” Colantuono echoes.

Colantuono found that many other students and tutors in Quincy were willing to offer their support when he found derogatory posters on his door. “It became a House controversy,” he says.

The gay rights movement grew exponentially in size and strength throughout the early ’80s.

“In my freshman year, at the beginning, I knew of two other [gay] people in our class,” says Schatz, adding that the GSA had a mailing list of around 75 when he started college in 1978.

By 1981, it had grown to 300. “It became one of the largest groups on campus,” he says.

The year saw Harvard’s second annual Gay and Lesbian Awareness Day, contributing to an increasing awareness of gay issues among the straight population.

But minorities, says Robert O. Boorstin ’81, who was president of The Crimson in 1980, “were powerful out of all proportion to their numbers.”

Recalling Schatz’s incredible prominence on campus, he says, “It was not an easy time to be gay and open about being gay.”

LEGISLATING EQUALITY

The climax of the movement came when the Faculty of Arts and Sciences met in May of 1981 to vote on a proposal made by Colantuono to include sexual orientation in the Faculty’s non-discrimination policy.

Nine of the University’s 11 faculties had already adopted such a policy, and the Law School had already thrown U.S. Navy recruiters off its campus in because of their refusal to agree to its own anti-discrimination rules.

Huge numbers of students mobilized in support of Colantuono’s proposal.

Around 1,300 undergraduates signed a petition organized by the group Straights for Gays backing the proposal, and the Committee on Housing and Undergraduate Life, of which Colantuono was a student member, endorsed his motion.

However, on May 22, 1981, the Faculty Council rejected the legislation, although it simultaneously confirmed the commitment of the Admissions Office not to take applicants’ sexual orientation into account.

Speculation at the time suggested that the Faculty was afraid that conservative donors would withhold money or felt they should abstain from such discussions by sticking to the criteria of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, which did not have a non-discrimination policy by sexual orientation.

Professor Claudio Guillén, who supported the proposal at the time, claimed that the Faculty was simply unwilling to appear to endorse homosexuality, according to a 1981 Crimson article.

“I don’t really remember much about the discussions that went on about that issue,” says Henry Rosovsky, then dean of the Faculty. “I don’t think it was a big issue [on campus]. Except for the gay rights groups....They really wanted it.”

“That may have been more of a blow for others more naïve than I,” Schatz says.

TWENTY-FIVE YEARS LATER

A similar bill was eventually passed by the Faculty in 1985, before the Massachusetts General Court did in 1987.

The experience of gay undergraduates today is very different.

“I feel like Harvard’s definitely one of the best places to be out,” says Ryan R. Thoreson ’07, outgoing co-chair of today’s Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance, although he does admit to feeling intimidation around campus on account of his sexuality.

Last April, a gay undergraduate was reportedly punched in the head and chest around campus after he confronted two local men who were shouting homophobic and anti-Semitic insults. Hundreds of students rallied in his support.

“I feel like the administration in general operates with a cautious stance towards any social change, but at the same time, it doesn’t discriminate,” Thoreson adds.

“American culture has moved on,” Colantuono says. Contrasting his own experiences at Harvard with those of today’s gay undergraduates, he says, “It’s a very different experience from mine.”

LEGACY OF AN ACTIVIST

A Crimson article from 1981 quotes one professor as saying, “It will all blow over when Schatz graduates.”

But the gay rights movement at the College continued to grow after his graduation.

“I recall that there was a growingly active gay rights movement and I think this period coincides with much more discussion and action in society,” Rosovsky says.

Schatz characterizes his tenure as GSA president as a period of tension, calling the late 1970s “the ancient days of horse and buggy and homophobia.”

“No social group was ever granted its rights by kind-hearted people,” he says, adding that the GSA’s actions were viewed as a source of embarrassment for the school.

Boorstin also emphasizes the personal role of his friend Schatz: “He had more courage in his little finger than most people had in their entire body.”

Thoreson, on the other hand, emphasizes larger social shifts in the advancement of gay rights at Harvard.

“I don’t think you can institute concrete changes unless there’s broader support for it,” he says.

This is reflected in his organization’s current focusing on social acceptance of homosexuality.

Colantuono says he feels the past 25 years have seen tremendous changes in attitudes towards the position of gay people in society. He recalls that when he became Undergraduate Assembly president, one member questioned what message his election would send to the outside world.

But Colantuono concludes, “I rather doubt that question would be asked today.”

—Lois E. Beckett contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer John R. Macartney can be reached at jmacartn@fas.harvard.edu.