Silber’s decision to shut down the GSA

Aliza M. Riley amriley@bu.edu SED 2003

Ok, Mr. Silber. You dismantled the Gay-Straight Alliance of the BU Academy. This is the last straw of many “last straws”. Shutting down an organization that offers support and promotes tolerance and acceptance shows just how little you know about students’ needs and how you refuse to embrace the ideas of tolerance and acceptance yourself. I’m having Marty McFly Syndrome. See, I thought I was living in the year 2002, a time when people are moving forward in learning to see each other as equal human beings regardless of skin color, nationality, gender or sexual orientation. But it seems to me that you threw us right back into the 1950’s, a time when people were allowed to be hostile and unaccepting of other peoples’ lifestyles. Personally, I’d like to head “back to the future” with a university leader who isn’t afraid to take steps to ensure the best quality of life for his or her students. The whole issue of censoring student groups all comes down to one thing for you, Mr. Silber…fear. That’s right. You are obviously afraid of the things you can’t control or understand. It’s pretty clear that you don’t understand the GSA, their goals and their purpose. I mean, how could you if you never took the initiative to attend one of their meetings, participate in a group activity or listen to their individual stories? I am making an assumption that you haven’t done any of those things, but I am pretty sure that I am right. If you had, your spokesman wouldn’t have said that the group’s “focus on sexuality…[is] inappropriate with the age range with which we are dealing.” You have a skewed and very twisted perception of what this group has to offer. You and your brainwashed crew of spokespeople make it sound as if group get-togethers are actually group orgies. This group is for support, strength, discovery, acceptance and friendship; not for encouraging “premarital sex”. As far as your comments about sexuality not being appropriate for this age range, I have one word for you: puberty. And to be honest and factual, this is the age range in which people develop their sexual identities and face the realities that their changing bodies and minds present. This is the time that children become adults. This is the time that they will have questions. Without this group, so many questions go unanswered and so much ignorance is perpetuated. So, why can’t you come up with some real reasons for shutting down the GSA instead of making up untrue allegations and evidence that really only supports your own personal agenda? By the way, that same personal agenda recently led you to veto a non-discrimination clause that would be added to the admissions policy in regard to sexual orientation. By taking actions to shut down the group, you are saying that since you want to discriminate against homosexuals, then, gosh-darn-it, the whole university must be forced into doing so, also. You have made it painfully clear to the world that you don’t have time for protecting the rights of homosexuals in a community over which you have significant power. I thought you were in the business of education, but I guess I was wrong. You are in the business of dictatorship, intolerance and prejudice. So, Mr. Big Bad Wolf Silber, you can huff and you can puff and you can blow the BU Academy’s Gay-Straight Alliance down, but you can be sure that we students will be answering back with a blow that will knock you off your feet.

Aliza M. Riley SED 2003