Get Used to It: Ep. 116, "LGBT and Academia"

(hammering sound) (upbeat music) - Hi, welcome to Get Used to It. I'm Sheila Kuehl, and I'll be your gracious hostess for this segment. If you've been with us before, you know that this is a show about issues that are of interest too, and sometimes about the lesbian/gay community. And today we're gonna explore the topic of teaching, research, sort of what does academia have to do with our community and our movement, if anything, and kind of what's that about. And I have three wonderful guests. The first John Heilman, who is a law professor at Whittier Law School in Orange County, also an adjunct professor at the USC Law Center. He teaches sexual orientation and law, and of course, like most of the law professors, he also teaches torts and evidence and criminal procedure and community property, and a bunch of other things. And in his spare time, he's on the city council in West Hollywood, he's been mayor five times and he's currently the Mayor Pro Tem. Welcome John. - [John] Thanks for having us, Sheila. - I don't know how you find the time to even be with us, but I'm very happy that you're here. - Thanks for doing this show. - Thank you. My second guest is Linda Garnets. Who's an adjunct professor at UCLA in psychology, women's studies and LGBT studies. She's currently teaching the psychology of lesbian experience. She's also taught sexual orientation and mental health issues. And in terms of the research that often goes with academic work, she has been the past chair of the committee on gay and lesbian, bisexual concerns for the American Psychological Association. She's the author of two books, I think that's correct, and more than 25 articles, including "Psychological Perspectives on LGB Experiences." Welcome, Linda. - Thanks, feeling great to be here. - Thank you. My third guest is Eric Wat, who is a professor at UCLA and Cal State Fullerton. At the moment, I think teaching Asian American sexualities class, and it's a joint class between Asian American studies and LGBT studies. He's also the research and evaluation coordinator for a non-profit called special services for groups. Welcome to all my guests. John, let me start with you. I wanted to do the show today because often people think, oh, well, academia is so separate from real life. All those professors are up there in an ivory tower and they're either way too liberal or way too conservative and they're teaching what they want, et cetera, but more and more we've seen people in academia teaching about issues that have to do with our community. And you're a law professor and we tend to count on the law a lot. So I wanna kind of explore with you first of all, why did you decide to teach in the law school and why teaching issues about our community? - I love teaching. I love communicating with people. I love communicating with young people who are so excited about their future, and they're excited about our issues. In the law school, our issues really are the cutting edge issues, public policy. When you talk about courtroom battles and talk about custody of gay and lesbian in gay and lesbian relationships, and you talk about domestic partners, you talk about discrimination, all of those issues are the cutting edge civil rights issues. So in my classes, many of the students are non-gay and lesbian students, they have friends, they have family, or they just are interested in the law and you can't be interested in the law without having some knowledge of these issues. - But when you first started teaching, did we have classes like this? - No, certainly when I was in law school, you didn't have classes like this. - [Sheila] No. - And when I started teaching, I would try to incorporate gay and lesbian issues to the extent I could in my regular teaching, but there were no courses just dealing with GLBT issues. And now pretty much every law school has at least a basic course on GLBT issues and some have even more advanced courses focusing on specific aspects of our issues. And as you know, we're actually gonna be doing a summer program solely on gay, lesbian, bisexual, legal issues. This is the first summer abroad program to really focus on our issues. And again, the student body is not gonna all be GLBT students. A lot of other students are coming because they really are interested in these issues. - There's been kind of an explosion of interest in the area in terms of classes, as well as research. Do your students engage in research or how do you get them to connect what they're learning to kind of real life issues? - Well, there are two things I do. First of all, when I'm teaching the course, I always include a public service component. So I require the students to do something and they have pretty much free reign as to what they're gonna do. Some of them will organize a symposium, sort of a teaching session on various issues that they're concerned of. And that opens it up to a broader audience, not just the people taking the class. Some of the students have actually done work in high schools and assisted high school students with learning about their legal rights. And then some of the other students have developed educational brochures that are be available. I had one student who was really involved in personnel, and so she developed an entire personnel manual that other people can use dealing with the implementation of the new domestic partnership law here in California. It's a big issue for employers. How do they provide benefits? How do they ensure that benefits are equal? How do they deal with our issues in the workplace in a sensitive and appropriate way? And so she's actually developing this and she's probably going to be able to sell it to other people to use in the workplace. - So what do you think your students get out of your class? - I think even when I'm not teaching sexual orientation in the law, a lot of students tell me that this is the first time they had somebody openly gay as a professor and for many people, we tend to forget it here in West Hollywood, but for many people seeing an openly gay person in a position of authority is new for them and it opens their eyes. Even some of the most conservative students have been very supportive of my teaching because they relate to me and they respond to my teaching and it changes their viewpoint about who we are as gay and lesbian people. So I think that alone is a very important contribution, but in the gay and lesbian courses, the students really come away from those courses with a much broader understanding of the diversity of our community and some of the challenges that we have faced historically and continue to face in terms of discrimination and protecting our relationships, they come to understand that our relationships are much different than they had thought coming in. And I think they also recognize that our community is very diverse in terms of viewpoints and in terms of what we really want. I team taught it this last year and my colleague who I taught with, she and I would battle over certain issues because there isn't a universal viewpoint within our community. So I think that exposure was good for the students as well. - Well also in the law, there's not a universal point of view. I mean, what we learn in law school essentially is there's no such thing as the law. There is policy embedded in rules adopted by real people and then interpreted by court. So the interpretation, I'm not saying that it's way, way open so that there's never any secure identification of what the law is, but it's more or less an argument. And that I think is a good thing for them to learn as well, the team teaching notion. But the community has really kind of become a movement. I mean, a community is one thing, it's a supportive environment. A movement really is something moving towards a goal. Do you see the kind of teaching in law school or undergraduate or wherever has a part or a place in the movement? - Oh, absolutely. And I think that when you talk about a movement, we really need all different components. We need people who are activists out on the street, and we need people who are able to go into the legal system and be advocates for our community there, we need people who are doing research because the kind of research that your other guests are gonna talk about, that is useful in making the legal arguments, some of the great work that's being done at UCLA and the Williams Project, that empirical data is then able to be transferred into the legal arguments that are being used to advocate for protection for our relationships and the ability of gay and lesbian couples to marry. So all of those component parts are essential to a movement, and I think what's happening is, and hopefully will continue to happen is that the divisions between those components of our movement will break down and we'll all recognize that we all play a role. In academia, I think the role is in inspiring the next level and the next generation of leaders and advocates. I think it's also informing people about our community and I hope to some degree, we're able to give people the incentive and the excitement and the passion for our issues that I think all of us share in terms of attaining quality for our community. - Well, Linda you're teaching at UCLA, and I know you've been teaching a class about the lesbian experience. - Absolutely. - But I know you've also taught in the sort of broader area of mental health issues as well as doing research. What is your experience like at UCLA? What are your students like? What is the class kind of framed around? How long have you been doing it? A little history on your work there. - Yeah, first of all, I wanna take one of his classes. I'm excited. (all laughs) - That would be great, the problem is you turn out to be a lawyer. So you have to- - There is that. I've been teaching this class since 1987. The particular class, it was known originally psychology lesbian experience, now it's affectionately known as dyke-psych. (sheila laughs) Everybody's gotta take dyke-psych. And it was an interesting how it came to be because there weren't really, there were very few courses at UCLA at the time, but there were two straight women. One was the chair of the social psychology area, one was the chair of women's studies and they said, "We need a course on lesbians." And they knew that I had a feminist background and was a lesbian, so there. I was doing research in that area so they asked me to do it. And fortunately they were negotiating psychology and women's studies was negotiating an arrangement. And so they made a seven year commitment to the course, which I do not believe that course would've stayed without it, because there were many people, particularly in psychology who thought this course was irrelevant. Thought it had nothing to do with science, thought it was advocacy. And every year, despite that I had this contract, the curriculum committee would review it and say, I don't know why we're teaching this class and I'd have to get all this information again, to show that in fact you've committed to it. And I'm happy to say after all of that struggle that now the class is a permanent class. - Well, I'm smiling because the rest of the sciences feel that way about psychology anyway. - [Linda] There you go. - That's not a science. Why are we teaching that? I remember that from, this is true. - So that's the history of it. It's been wonderful. As long as I've taught it, there's always been more women than men, but there's always been cutting across ethnicity, sexual orientations and various backgrounds. And it is the best environment for social change. Because when I created, I won't take more than about 35 students. Everyone can see each other. And it's a combination of teaching them a lot of information to reduce stereotypes, but to create an environment in which they talk to each other, they tell each other's stories. They listen to each other's lives and it's transformative. And I early on introduced the concept of allies goes with something John was saying so that every heterosexual student can feel like there's something they're working towards, that they would want to work towards. And while we focus a lot on the straight students and how they'll be affected by our learning, one of the most powerful things in that thing that makes me the happiest is that the gay and lesbian and bisexual students talk about what it's like to be sitting with a group of heterosexual allies as they talk about their lives and they make enormous personal changes and everyone need's politicized, sort of what John was saying. - What kinds of units, or subject areas would be included in your class? - I have about five major themes. I have found it important to first help people understand the concepts and the intersections among racism and sexism and heterosexism and how those interface. It's always been important to make sure that the diversity of our community is for forefront for everybody. So that's, I do a theoretical piece. The second part is historical. I have them read Lillian Faderman book, which talks about the 20th century experience of lesbians. And so we talk about the changes personally and politically that have occurred from 1900s up until now. So they have that perspective. And then I talk about identity development in a multicultural context and how we come out to ourselves, to our families, to the people we work with. We focus on developmental issues that have to do with lifespan. Like there's life past being 20. I like to point out. So we talk about midlife and aging and what changes in that. And then we focus on issues of community and community building on family and then creating family and relationships. And so those are the main themes that I focus on. - The area of psychology, I know you've had a private practice as a counselor and therapist as well, as well as a kind of organizational counselor- - [Linda] Yes. - Past. But I think the work that I'm probably most familiar with is the work that you've done in drawing together research about our community, as well as your own. And the incredible affect on the American Psychological Association and therefore really on the country. Could you talk a little about, or a lot about that? - [Linda] I'd love love to talk. - Please, 'cause that's the research part of it and the teaching part, I mean in most teaching has to do with that. - [Linda] Yes. - So I think it's very interesting what you done- - It's one of the things I feel most proud about being involved with because in our community, the truth is that psychology specifically has been such a source of the problem. We know we're living again through being sinners, but there was a long stretch with our being sick and pathologized has destroyed so many people's lives. And the way we changed that was the joining of activists who said, "This is not okay." And gathering research that showed that we are not psychologically any more impaired than any straight person that research. And in 1973, changing the Bible of Psychiatry, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, and saying that we are no longer being gay in and of itself means you mentally ill was very, very significant. And then what allowed us to start doing research that we spent so much time doing research that said, "Let us prove we're not different than you, let us prove we're not sicker than you." Well, you know what? I think we're different than you and I like our differences. So we were able then to gather research that moved from that affirmative stance to start doing things that looked at the nature of our lives and how we create our lives. And now one of the things I got most pleasure from is a book that came out in the eighties by a woman named Pepper Schwartz. And it's called "Peer P-E-E-R Marriage." And she talked about egalitarian marriage. And the entire book is basing on research of gay and lesbian couples, and said straight people would learn more about our relationships. So it's kind of been allowing us to show our innovation and our uniqueness, it's particularly important now because as we have a conservative backlash, there is also a conservative backlash in psychology. There are now people that are because there's a loophole in the American Psychological Association, ground rules and regulations about diversity that religiously oriented schools don't have to be held to the same standard. And there are many religiously based psychologists, particularly some of them are not religiously based. They're just uninformed and homophobic that's or on TV. So that's what I'll say about them. And they are now trying to bring back re-pathologizing us advocating celibacy or conversion therapy. And if for people don't know, conversion therapy means that they will try to change our behavior and our identity from gay to straight. And so I am revitalized in my efforts to teach and to use the research we have. The cool thing is we have research that refutes everything they're saying. And the one other thing you asked me, I'm giving you the long answers. - [Sheila] That's good. - One last thing I'm answering is that where this applies to the American Psychological Association is we were able to use this research. And as I said, I was involved with the governance and so on of the organization. So they have now come up with resolutions from the association, let's say it's unethical to try to convert someone from gay to straight that have said that came out in favor of same sex marriage, that have come out in favor of a lot of our issues because the research justifies it. APA has done so many wonderful amicus briefs and support of our issues because the data is there. That's why it's so important to understand the application of research to practice and policy is critical. - Eric, it's interesting to me also, the connections that we've had from really from the beginning, I think to ethnic studies experience in academia, because that was a difficult uphill struggle to even be recognized to have there be institutes or centers or whatever. And your history began in the Asian Pacific Studies. - That's right. - Arena. Tell us a little about that. And then how that may have either brought you or your own experience brought you into teaching in LGBT arena. - Well, I first started becoming more active on campus through Asian American Studies, but also women's studies as well. Just talking about that, because at that time before LGBT studies, women's studies really the kind of classes that you can take, that you can still learn about sexuality and sexual orientation and talk about all these things that you can talk about in other classes. And it's interesting to me, because both disciplines have this idea of, using education for social change. There is a political purpose to why someone would go to college and raise the consciousness about how the world really works. So when LGBT studies come along, I really try to so import that kind of idea of social change into what I teach and that's how I think about putting together syllabus, always thinking about what does this mean in terms of the community what's going on in the community? How do I get people to think about these issues differently? And I also equate education to another form of community organizing really. And it's probably the easiest form of community organizing because you have a grade there in front of students. So they have to talk about what you want them to talk about. They have to write this paper, they have to do these readings, in the community organizing much more difficult. It's much more harder to do all the people do what you want them to do. So again, it's another way for them, like some of the experience that you guys described with people sort of just have the light bulb turned on when talking about these things and be able to relate to their own personal experiences classroom it's a wonderful opportunity if you do it right, for that to happen too. So this is so natural for me to jump from the activist to also the educator as well. - So tell me a little bit about what you teach and what the content of the class is. - Currently, I'm teaching a class on nation American sexualities. It's like you said earlier, it's a class that are jointly offered by the Asian American Studies Department and the LGBT studies program at UCLA. And naturally the history of that class came out of one of the classes that Linda taught many years ago on introduction to LGBT studies, a group of Asian American students who took that class, got to know each other and got really excited about a topic. And they thought we need a class talking about Asian Americans. We got so excited about the topic that they started talking to all different kinds of professors and departments about the possibility of getting someone to teach something like that. And the responses has always been, we don't really have that much on the topic. It's really hard to offer a class when there's not that much research done or information out there. And so the students with the help of the Asian American studies center spent at least a quarter, probably more than a quarter put together syllabus and put together a list of readings. And I kid you not the first time they offered this class, the course reader was two foam books vague on Asian American experience. - We all make that mistake. (all laughing) Do you have to read it? - Yes, yeah. I probably have read three articles per week right now, but at that time it was so amazing. Just go against everything that everyone thought about materials being out there for queer APIs folks. And when I teach this class at, when you were talking about your class, I was thinking, wow, this is so amazing because I also go from history to identity, to community with the Asian American class studies class, I also in the transnational part because there are a lot of people who are still showing back and forth. You talk about sort of sex tourism as one of the huge issues impacting both sides of the ocean. So this is so why usually include it, but the identity has to, not has to but a lot of time it's based on the history. So this is why I think it's so worthy to talk about the history of the movement. How do we come about, my own research is really about how do we find each other when there was no organizations when there are no community. So the fact that there is a community now, it doesn't come out of just, people's good will. People have to fight hard for it. And to me, that's also a very important political lesson for the students as well. - Well, it is also the case that we had to fight hard for the inclusion of these classes. What Linda said about, what is that about? There's nothing to teach and you've had kind of the same experience at the beginning. And the students were trying to pull together these materials, what we found in the law, when we were talking about these issues is that all the evidence was anecdotal. Not real research, meaning empirical, I guess, but people's stories. And what has happened in law schools that I've seen is people like Derek Bell and other professors have said, no stories are evident. Have you had the same experience in your area? - Yeah, definitely. I'm a all historian by trade. This is what I did for my grad school. I go around collecting stories, personal stories by people who are active in the community. So in order to tell more of a collective story, and it is so important to get that because especially in the gay male community where wait, it's important in every community, but for the gay men, definitely with the sort of ravages of HIV and AIDS, a lot of these people are dying. There are a couple of people that I will have loved to talk to and get their stories, but I couldn't, so it's really important. And I can tell you a lot of times, these people who are active, some of them are still active. They newly never thought of themselves as leaders or pioneers or someone who just role models for other people. They were just doing what needed to be done. There was some injustice around them and they need to act, and that's why they became active in the community, became activists. And after I put this history together, I was able to get it published and you can just see how they change how they look themselves, the people I interview, how they look at themselves. And all of a sudden this history has a connection to what's going on right now. And so it's such an important way to connect the different generations and think about what lessons did we learn, so are some of the things that we could use in our current struggle. And so stories, I feel like it's really important. And it's probably the most immediate way for someone to connect to one another. I mean if we don't know each other, we're strangers, we get together. That's what we told each other personal stories. So for me it is no brainer in some way. So to start with the stories I know in certain corner of history, discipline of history, all history solve the bastard of that discipline for the same reasons that you were mentioning that is anecdotal. But when you think about it, historian, study letters or speeches- - [Sheila] Diaries. - Diaries, then they try to prove something with these things. And these are just as constructed as anyone's personal experiences, it's just rely... They also rely on memories, which could be faulty. They rely on who the audience is. When you make a speech, you might say certain things that are contradicted to what you believe. So there are all these problems with evidence to begin with. So for me, it's not so much placing one emphasis on one type of evidence over another, but just look at how these things actually work and be able to work with one another and to tell a more complete version of what happened in history. - Well, they say history is written by the winners, and I guess all the rest of us who were not considered winners for a very long time. Had our stories, but they weren't collected as the official story of the human race. Which is why it's so much more about war than peace. And people who were elected over people who were community leaders or even labor leaders, et cetera. But the story of the late 20th century and probably much of this century has really changed that. And I was wondering though, the API, the Asian American Study Center, were they initially either I'm gonna use the word resistant or a little worried about bringing the issue of sexuality into, as an aspect of Asian American Studies? - Yeah, I wasn't involved in the first time when they tried to put this class together, but I'm still friends with those who put the cast class together. From what I understood, they weren't resistant at all. In fact, the students who later formed or revived a student group called Mahu, which is a support group for LBGT Asian American students, they ended up being sponsored by the Asian American Studies Center. And so they've been very receptive to it. So it's not that hard necessarily to get once they actually put the syllabus together and found a grad student who was willing to offer this, they were able to do this in what they call independent study at first. And that class has been taught for the last seven, eight years. I think there was one year where they didn't couldn't find anyone to teach it. There's no regular faculty, unfortunately to teach that class every year. So, and lucky for me. So I can step in when I have the time to sort of offer this class through the- - But that's another kind of cross fertilization as it were. People who are in the real world, all three of you have other aspects of your lives that you no doubt bring to this. Is there any communication though, between and among the sort of the lesbian experience class, the Asian American, LGBT experience class, et cetera, do you, since you're both at UCLA, at least occasionally, do you see some discussion in dialogue around that? - I have to qualify that too, because I am not on campus all the time. So it's really hard for me to see the kind of interaction that happens on campus with the students, at least. - Yeah, what I would say is a question about the students would be different than about faculty. My sense is that there are many students, one of the great things is you can get a minor in LGBT studies now, and that minor means that you're gonna be hooked up with some other area. So a lot of the students run into each other, whoever their orientations are, but they take various courses. 'Cause even though there's plenty more than when I started, they still finite number of courses. So I think the students have a lot of cross fertilization. Plus a lot of them get involved with all the various activities on campus. One of the nice things is there is the LGBT office itself, offers lectures and so on that people can go to that is very valuable as a LGBT Resource Center on campus with students gather. So this wonderful network for our students now. My sense is that the faculty doesn't have, because there is nobody just teaching LGBT they're all also in some other discipline. That there are meetings and they have context where they meet because there are, professional things on campus or presentations. And in a few times a year, they have a meeting, but it's not like a department that has regular meetings. However, saying that because people feel so passionately about our issues, we get to know each other, but there's a lot of informal networks. A lot of list serves that kind of thing. - I was thinking when I read the obituary this past week of Kenneth Clark, who did the research, that was used in Brown versus Board of Education about the detriment to young African American students, children from segregation, from segregated schools. And it was, I think, research in psychology. - He was the past president of the American Psychological Association. - And he was also a professor. - Yes, he was. - And that was great research and incredibly important in retrospect. I'm sure he didn't know when he was doing it, that it would be the basis of one of the most important Supreme court decisions in the history of America, but I'm interested. And what made me think about him is really, for all of you, the connection between, and among what you're doing on campus with your classes, with your students and movement, and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, because people think we are advocates and everybody else is neutral. When you said, oh, but that's advocacy. That's not just teaching psychology. So have you, I don't even know what the answer might be, but tell me what you think about the connection to movement, whether that's a good thing, whether it's a suspect thing in terms of academic neutrality or whatever, or if that's not a good question, make up your own. - I don't think academia is ever neutral. And I think what we learned and going through law school, what we were taught was not completely neutral. It may have been under the guise of neutrality, but people had a position. And part of I think what you want to do in an academic setting is teach students to think for themselves and investigate for themselves and determine for themselves what they believe and what they are passionate about. But I think the connection between academia and our movement is so important, our students learn leadership skills by participating in the movement. And the students who've I've worked with are excited that the work I'm doing on the city council or the work you're doing up in Sacramento, it's much more meaningful for them to read about things or learn about things from people who've actually been there and have participated in it. It makes it more meaningful for them. And it's part of, I think educating students is connecting them to the real world so that they can go out and function in the real world. - To add to that, there's been an important movement within education of talking about social justice education and the importance and the value of teaching people about principles of diversity and equality and so on. And I see my work as part of that. I've done a lot of work early on I was involved with starting women's studies at University of Michigan, and we're teaching those courses and knowing these issues go together, they're all interrelated. And I agree with John, first of all, it is critical just to open people's minds. I was struck this quarter by the number of straight students that said, "I don't know if you understand, this is the only course that deals with women's sexuality on campus." This is the only the discussion that what invariably happens in my class is it starts out as an issue of sexual orientation. And it moves in many ways, but one of the ways it moves is the women kind of see this commonality of experience. Because is status difference between men and women and the men kind of see a commonality and there's. So I feel that it in and of itself, it opens up the possibility of people just understanding variety of perspectives. It gives people a chance that they don't get in society to meet people different from themselves. Those are the lessons they take is not just about our community. It's about how to be in the world, the kind of person to be. And I think that inherently connects people to our movement because they realize it's about love. They realize the cost of homophobia is about hate, and it also, because it sounds like we all teach with the intersections, 'cause you can't pluck out one aspect of diversity, but I really think the social justice education is the underpinning and I'm all for that. And I think it's tied to movement building. - And I think too, that's anytime you walk into a classroom, you're dealing with partial truth, even in my classroom. And you try to remind students that this is what having critical thinking skill is about. I'm trying to present you a side of the story. It's probably a side that you never heard of in other classes. So I don't think it's biased in that way, that is gonna overturn your thing that you learn. (all laughing) And it's also important to think about academia. The history of academia knowledge is discovered because of these minority opinions. We advanced not field... Sort of how we advance in the field is having these minority opinions sort of challenging what's been accepted as normal or just the truth. And if you don't question that, then there's gonna be no gain knowledge. So it's always important to have that perspective when you walk in a classroom, unfortunately these university, the classroom is set in a way that, that students are always looking to the lecturer or the professors for answers, but really the class that it just like you try to limit your class of 35 people so that you have to. So you can see each other. So you sort of decentralized this idea of what, who the authority is. That's the best way to learn, not sit there and listen to someone speak for three hours, even if he's the most, or she's the most amazing speaker. That's not how people learn. - Well, that's the other thing that could be revolutionary as well. Is that our methods of teaching? I don't mean just gay and lesbian people. But I mean, often we challenge the whole loaf of bread it were about teaching. When I was first teaching at Loyola Law School, we were being evaluated 'cause I was a first year assistant professor and it turned out that I was criticized by one of the, or two of the more senior professors for spoon feeding my students, which we later discovered meant I wasn't teaching them by terrorizing them the way students are normally taught in law school. And I didn't give them answers, but if they were wrong, I didn't beat them up. I simply elicited the next, I thought that was the Socratic method. Well, it turned out interestingly enough that only the women were accused of spoon feeding their students. So clearly we had a style that was not the regular style. And when we discovered that every single one of us had been critiqued on the same basis, we decided that there wasn't something wrong with us. There was something wrong with the old style. And in challenging that kind of opened up smaller seminar classes, ways of sitting around instead of facing, but sure. Discussion new ways of challenging the law and thinking about the law, which in a sense came out of movement because we had had these struggles where ideas don't intersect, but kind of go right up against each other in the movement as well. So you see differences, I think in teaching structure, I'm not sure John whether you've had this experience, 'cause you teach in a very kind of open law school it seemed to me when I was there. - Well, because I teach at both Whittier and USC, I get the experience of two law schools. But what you were saying about the criticism that you received, I received the same criticism early on that I was too nice to the students that I was doing too much work for them. I was making it too easy for them, but the students always evaluated me and said that I was a very hard grader, that my standards were very high, but they loved the class because they felt like they came away learning a lot and they enjoyed the learning experience. And I think there is something and this was what Linda was saying earlier about us being different. Yes, we're maybe the same in many respects as our straight friends, but we are different in some respects. And I think we have, because of our experience, a greater sensitivity towards people, at least I would think some of us do and we know what it feels like to be terrorized because for many of us, our existence is terrorism at least in the early years before we're out. So I think we do have that and we bring that to the classroom and we have that warmth that students respond to. I think our passion about different issues as well, makes us more willing to try different things and connect to doing more service learning where people are actually helping people and not just learning in some sterile environment. - I'd like to pick up on that because I actually wanted to share a little bit about method, 'cause I've thought a lot about it in terms of the class working and the things that have been the elements that I include or many would've already been expressed. But one is that I actually set some ground rules at the beginning of the class. So to create an environment for people feeling safe and including the assumption that they're all resources and I don't know all the answers as well as no personal attacking, even those differences and ideas. So it kind of sets a norm 'cause I believe that part of what I wanna teach them is how to be respectful of themselves and each other because you can't do that and not start to appreciate if some people have privilege and some people don't and that's my hope. So there's that element. I also happen to do weekly reaction papers because that's why I like to keep the class small. - [Sheila] Reactions to- - And what they can do- - what happened in class? - The only eval, they don't get evaluated or graded except that they have to turn it in. They can do it on the readings. They can do it on the class. They can do it what gets picked up in, something that and what ends up happening is they either ask more questions and information, or they share more personal things. And I have, and I respond, I really take time to respond. It's one of the most gratifying things because we have a dialogue, they come back to the class and it just kind of deepens the level. But I'm saying, so I have really believe that that mixing of the kind of personal with the academic is the best environment. Also every week they read personal stories as well as the academic, because if the data isn't real, it's not gonna mean a thing to them. And the only last thing I wanted to share is that, and maybe 'cause it ties to the movement. I the last day of class, I scare them that they have to come it's mandatory. And I basically do. I have a whole ritual that I don't wanna reveal in case they're watching, but I basically do a queer graduation. And I think about all the students, each person I know and I give them pins, from art did various, affirmative pins, but they're sort of graduating. And I have them each write on a piece of paper, one stereotype that they came into the class and collectively we all screen them out loud, rip them up and throw them in the middle of the room. And then they write down at least one commitment. They're gonna make that they're gonna do different a result of the class and they don't have to share them, but many people do. And I just feel like it sort of that to me helps them bridge what you've been asking about. And I know some people would think, I don't know what that was, whatever they would think. I feel like it's really helpful in the learning. - Well, when I was working at UCLA, I really felt like at that age, the undergraduates and to some extent, postgraduate, but not quite as much. It's the time when they really form their ethical and moral bases. I find they come into college, not everybody, of course, but most students that I met come into college with a lot of acceptance of what they've been told or acceptance of what they have heard from other people, but not so much them having a really clear cut set of ethical and moral values, sort of concretized. I could be wrong. I mean, I don't know. Maybe students are different now, but that so much learning goes on at that level about that. And maybe because you've encouraged them to do critical thinking. Many people who are critical of our community, think what you're doing is proselytizing. And yet you've talked about freedom. You've talked about diversity. You've talked about critical thinking. It's very interesting to me and maybe that's why the right-wing is so afraid of education is because it does allow critical thinking. But do you find that there's, it's interesting when you ask them to make these transitions as well, and of course you see them right out of college, John, mostly. What do you think about these students? Are they different than you were? Are they less formed, more formed, opinionated, not opinionated, passive, whatever? Who are they now? - Wow, that's- - That's a big one. - That's a big one. I can tell you it's always a surprise who comes to class, who takes your class? You always, even if you after you take, you teach it several times, you think you got handled on this and sometimes people come along and just surprise you. I have to say with UC students within my own limited experience, I feel the students have gotten a little bit more privileged at least economically. So it's harder to talk about some of these issues. I don't know how much of this has to do with Prop 209 but they're rolling back of privilege of action. So these are smart students, but in the same time, at the same time, they're not as questioning, you know? So it takes them a while to sort of get the sense that like I don't want them to sit there and just listen to me. I don't want them to take notes so there is some test in the end that they can pass. That's not just the goal of the class and it always takes a few weeks to sort of acclimate to a different style of lecture. I don't know if you have the same experience too. - I don't, but I think it's for one other reason, since I've been teaching the same course, this one of the things I've doing is the same course since '87, almost 20 years. The thing that's been most profound to me has been see that one, the change in people's attitude about the topic in terms of- - [Sheila] You mean even just coming in before they have started. - And I think in other words, I have seen more over the time I've seen more straight kids take the class who are either allies already coming in, which was not true at the beginning a lot who come in because they have family connections or friends and they wanna understand, but I've seen them also coming in. You can see the effect of our movement because they're coming in more open to not thinking they're 100% straight to understanding there's a continuum. There's a change in the students and in the straight students, in the gay students and bisexual and get some transgender students, the changes that they were much more afraid to be open in the class, like they got more threatened by there being straight kids in the class. Now it's like, it's our class. You can be here. I don't know about you, but it's like, this is our space, but not in a very affirming way. So I've seen that difference in terms of the point you're raising. I definitely have seen the class shift because of two, I do see that and it's been very disturbing. I haven't seen it affecting it in quite the way you were saying, but that's been a concern to me. - I've seen a lot of what you've seen in terms of the mindset of students coming into the classroom and just reflecting on my own law school career when I was first teaching. And when I was in law school, these issues weren't talked about, you just didn't have people who would even come out and identify themselves as openly gay/lesbian people. And now, everyone coming into the law school pretty much they're known and they're out and they're out in their first year and they're out in their applications to law school. So it's a very different mindset. And the student body, I think by and large has a greater understanding of gay and lesbian issues. It's hard not to our issues are all over the newspaper, all over the media. And so the change has been dramatic in the last 20 years in terms of where people are just in terms of their knowledge and their awareness. - Can I say one other thing though, that has been quite disturbing, particularly this year, I had more straight students getting harassed by their sorority and fraternity brothers and sisters and by other people for taking this class because sadly the stigma and the hatred has been so flared up that to be an ally of the community, takes a particular kind of courage and strength. And there was, I don't know if you've seen that, but that was the hardest part to see particularly the last couple of years. - Well, we'd live in the larger world in academia, too. The pressures that come from the outside, we're affected positively and negatively, we wouldn't have these classes if it weren't for the movement. Movement made everything possible. We wouldn't have laws, because no one would've felt even an ability to vote their conscience, in favor of having some civil rights law had there not been something built even before Stonewall, but certainly since Stonewall where there was articulation of this, then there was research, which was not even validated for quite a while, or at least respected. I mean, I know it was validated, but in the same way, the right wings movement, which has been increasingly successful has also, I think been brought into academia, certainly at the K-12 level. There has been so much homophobic work and yet we have a law that says you can't harass students on this basis and there's been cases and a lot of good conflict where people had to stand up and say, no, I'm for it. No I don't like unfairness. I like civil rights. I like equality even students at that level. But I think there's been this impact, not as much in universities, universities are generally shielded from these ultra conservative swings, but I could be wrong. I'm not teaching now tell me. - I think there is an orchestrated effort to attack universities and colleges that there's an active recruitment to very right-wing conservative activities in the law school organizations like the Federalist Society, the Republican Party is recruiting heavily on college campuses and they're spending a lot of money to do that, to fund that kind of recruitment. And part of the way they recruit is by attacking schools that are offering different points of views and attacking specific classes and trying to demonize people who participate in it. So I'm worried about that. I think that we need to be careful about that because it is certainly on the right wings agenda to come to campuses and attack us. - Well, a Solomon Amendment that said that you don't get any federal funding for your entire university if you don't allow the military to come and recruit, you might have a policy against discrimination in the university. And that was really sort of fought out in the court so far, we've actually prevailed. Although it was took a while many law schools were actually involved in, getting students to help file those briefs. But it's still threatened and really not clear. So threatening the funding for teaching, these kinds of classes is also, everybody says academic freedom. And so far that's been just like freedom of speech has been a very, very important ball work for us. But so tell me what you feel most 'cause we have about four minutes left. What you feel most affirmative, most confident about in terms of teaching and the importance of teaching these classes at the various levels at which you teach, what's the best thing about them being taught? - About the classes being taught? - Yeah, the sort of what happens in the world or what do you have confidence that keeps you going and doing it? - I think for me, it's that light bulb that goes on in the classroom and it might go on the first week. It might go on in the last moment and 10th week. But you know it, when it go or when you read a paper, you are like, wow, this person has never thought about these issues before and he or she might be, or even apologizing in the paper, but they are thinking about it. And the fact that they are thinking about because of the class is it's fascinating. I mean, they don't have to go out and protest in the street in the end. But the fact that you do have this impact on the person it's really incredible for a teacher. - All of that and it gives me faith and hope for the future. I love being engaged with students at this age. I feel like I'm getting a pulse on what's happening. And I watch the transformation in the class and it gives me hope. - I kind of love seeing the transformation through the law school and my students come in and they're really smart to begin with. And then watching them grow through the three years and their skills improve and then watching them graduate and then keeping in touch with them after they get out and knowing that they're out there doing good things, it may not be in our movement or in our community, but they're out there and they still have the values that they picked up along the way and that they committed to. I think that's exciting. I also love the personal connection with the students, 'cause I'm sure you have that experience. They feel like they can share their own personal journey and experience with you and watching them grow personally and becoming comfortable in their own skin. I love to see that occur. - Well, thank you very much to my guest. Thank you for joining us for this. You've been hearing a lot about what we have to teach and what we have to learn. There's a lot yet to go. So Get Used to It. (upbeat music)