At Tulane, gay student finds fears groundless

Tulane sophomore Thomas Krouse is gay, and as a temporary Penn student last fall, he let the school know about it when he publicly complained that he didn't want to leave the liberal northeast for his southern home.

Fast-forward to today, though, and Krouse says he could not have been more wrong.

"I was pleasantly surprised," he said. "People at Tulane have a different mentality."

The New Orleans native said in the Dec. 5, 2005 issue of The Daily Pennsylvanian, "I didn't like the South. I was tormented there, and [the Northeast] is much more accepting." He added that the only reason he was returning to Tulane was that Penn did not accept his transfer application.

As a freshman, Krouse had only spent a few days on Tulane's campus before making the statements, and his opinion infuriated other Tulane students evacuated to Penn.

"We were all furious about that article," says one Tulane student who also spent last fall at Penn.

Krouse said he attributes his comments to a particularly bad experience at his all-boys Catholic high school and added that people at Tulane are just as accepting of him as they were at Penn.

"I think that was high school speaking, not the South in general," he said. "I mean, hell, I got into a fraternity."

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