Yale turns down offer for gay studies chair

Playwright and gay activist Larry Kramer accused Yale University of homophobia after the school refused to accept his multi-million dollar offer this summer to endow a tenured professorship in gay studies. Kramer, who graduated from Yale in 1957, helped found the Gay Men's Health Crisis support group in 1981 and created the AIDS activist organization Act Up -- a group which has become known for exploits such as interrupting trading on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in 1989. In a letter to Kramer, Yale Provost Alison Richard explained that university officials felt gay and lesbian studies was too narrow a field to merit a permanent professorship. She added that Yale could not add a professorship without cutting another because there is also a freeze on faculty hiring. But since Kramer offered to endow the job himself, Yale would not have had to pay for the new professor's salary, so it is not clear that the hiring freeze would apply. Richard said Yale's decision was also based on the conviction that the faculty, rather than the donor, should be responsible for establishing tenured professorships. Two years ago, Yale rejected a $20 million gift from Texas billionaire Lee Bass to create a program in traditional Western thought. Bass had made the donation in 1991, when Penn President Judith Rodin was Yale's provost. When Yale rejected the Bass gift, it also pointed to what officials called Bass's requests for unreasonable control over the program. Richard drew a parallel between the two gifts, defending Yale's most recent action on the same grounds used to reject the Bass donation. Kramer -- who is HIV positive -- first approached Yale with the proposal more than nine months ago when he began to make out his will. He withdrew the offer in July after several meetings with Richard and said he is now considering establishing an independent foundation. "I have no question in my mind that my gift was rejected because of extreme homophobia," he said. "There's no question that Yale is not a friendly place for gay professors or teachers." Kramer explained that he wanted to make a contribution that would help gay students feel more comfortable at Yale than he did in the 1950s. During his freshman year, he tried to commit suicide by overdosing on pills. "I tried to kill myself because, as far as I was concerned, I was the only gay kid on the face of the earth," he said. Kramer conceded that Yale students can now turn to several campus support services -- including a Lesbian and Gay Studies Center opened in 1987 -- but called the center a "hole in the wall." He complained that most gay studies courses at Yale are taught by non-tenured or visiting professors and said gay students need gay professors they can turn to for advice. "If you are willing to teach African American history or women's studies, why are you not willing to teach gay studies?" he asked. "As we grow more and more visible, we want to use our money to teach about us." He explained that as an academic discipline, gay studies would focus on gay contributions to history, sociology, politics and culture as well as aspects of sexual identity. Though most of his fame comes from his political activism, as a writer, Kramer is best known for his novel Faggots and his play The Normal Heart.