confrontations have escalated from verbal to physical abuse.
Because of the limited statistical tracking of such incidents, it has been left largely to individuals and organizations that have sought to implement awareness of the special situation faced by gay and lesbian college students to compile anecdotal evidence of harassment. The National Gay & Lesbian Task Force regularly updates its records of violence on campus and the problems confronting gay and lesbian students and organizations. Although figures are reported in the popular press, gay and lesbian advocacy groups cite both the figures and the difficulties of tracking them:
More than 7,000 acts of hate, ranging from verbal harassment
to physical violence, were committed against homosexuals and
lesbians last year, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
reported Thursday. Of those acts, nearly 1 in 5 occurred on
college campuses. Kevin Berrill, director of the task
force's Anti Violence Project and author of the group's
annual report, told a Capitol Hill news conference that
2,322 of the acts consisted of vandalism, intimidation or
physical violence and 4,709 were acts of verbal harassment.
The figures were compiled by 119 organizations and
individuals in 40 states and the District of Columbia. North
Carolina led the nation in anti gay violence with 1,204,
followed by Texas with 997, California (563), Illinois (529)
and Ohio (387). Nearly 20 percent of the acts occurred on
college campuses, Berrill said. Last year's figure was
slightly lower than the 1988 total of 7,248, but Berrill
said that most anti homosexual crimes were not documented
because of a "lack of systematic data collection throughout
most of the U.S." (Mannery 1990, p. 10).
The NGLTF's Student Organization Packet, which as a timely docu...