None of the departed or outgoing Harvard affiliates interviewed for this article said they left Harvard because they were dissatisfied with the University’s progress on LGBTQ issues.
“I am not concerned about the departure of a number of LGBTQ friends and colleagues,” McIntosh wrote in an email. “As I see it, these friends have had opportunities for professional advancement and have taken advantage of these opportunities.”
However, in the Facebook discussion, McLoughlin wrote to his colleagues “continuing to fight the queer fight within the Ivy Gates” that part of his reason for leaving Harvard was that he “knew the grass had to be greener” after years of frustration. After McLoughlin was contacted by The Crimson for this article, his comment has been removed from Facebook.
And Epps commented on Facebook, “I'm leaving Harvard not just because I'm delighted with my new job in Britain but also because after 21 years of struggling to have the administration support LGBTQ Studies--beyond the generosity of the HGLC and the Open Gate--, Latino Studies, Spanish, WGS, and so much more, I found myself increasingly exhausted.... I've gotten old at Harvard and I damn well didn't, don't, want to die there with the eternal promise of ‘some day, some day.’”
Also on Facebook, Marine voiced concern about her former colleagues’ departures, writing, “I’m sad too, mostly because it takes a village of queers (and allies) to make incremental change in any institution.”
But on a more upbeat note, McIntosh wrote in his email that he took solace in the fact that “there are several new and long-standing faculty and administrators who identify as LGBTQ who are still at Harvard.”
But McCarthy, Lekus, Page, and Blaine G. Saito ’04–an openly gay proctor who left Harvard this month–all said the departures worried them.
Saito, who said he had many conversations with LGBTQ freshmen during his time as a proctor, expressed concern that students grappling with their sexual identities may find fewer prominent LGBTQ mentors.
Page agreed. “If the same thing happened with racial and ethnic minorities, I think the University would see this as a red flag,” he said.
He said he hopes the University will recruit new LGBTQ faculty and administrators to replace those who have left.
“The question is, has it gone unnoticed? If it’s gone unnoticed, then that's a problem,” he said.
Hammonds, who is lesbian and is the University’s highest-ranking official who openly identifies as LGBTQ, declined to comment on whether she had noticed a recent rash of departures of LGBTQ faculty and administrators but reiterated her commitment to promoting a vibrant LGBTQ community on campus.
“I’m pleased to hear that today’s BGLTQ students, faculty, and staff expect the College to be a welcoming and affirming community. I do too,” Hammonds wrote in an email. “That concern will be top of mind for me and all the members of my administration in our search for new leaders who can extend the improvements in the environment for BGLTQ students and allies–and for undergraduates of all backgrounds and orientations–that we’ve seen in recent years.”
But for now, Harvard’s LGBTQ community counts fewer prominent faces among its leaders.
In the Facebook discussion, Marine addressed McCarthy, the only one of the nine discussion participants who will return to Harvard this fall. “Tim - I feel I have abandoned you,” she wrote.
“I’m feeling a little lonely, quite frankly,” McCarthy said in an interview. “I feel lonelier without these people, because they’re not only trusted colleagues, but trusted friends. I feel their absence very deeply.”
–Nathalie R. Miraval contributed to the reporting of this article.
–Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.