In allowing the military on campus Bates College said 'It is not. The college administration and student government adamantly defended the right of military recruiters to discriminate, and refused to ban the recruiters from campus. I was President of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Bates College in 1982-1983, and on 03/02/83 we held a sit-in at the career center to protest discriminatory policies against LGBT students by military recruiters. Queer activism on college campuses has been an important part of the LGBTQ struggle ever since Gay Liberation Front chapters were formed at several colleges across the United States in the early 1970s after the Stonewall Riots.Ī lot of the contributions that college activists have made in the equality movement have been forgotten but in recent years some higher ed institutions such as Middlebury College, Cornell University and Lafayette College have started assembling this LGBTQ history on their campuses.
