CAMPUS/AREA
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, April 12, 1994
3
FACES
Outspoken nature leads student into activism
Patrick By Angelina Lopez Dillevisa Kansan staff writer
staff
assistant at the
University
find an ex-student senator.
Throughout high school, Patrick Dilley said, he was very quiet about his homosexuality.
But during his freshman year at the University of Central Oklahoma, Edmond, Okla., his silence was broken when a classmate made a crack about people with AIDS.
"I snapped," said Dilley, Lawrence graduate student. "I laid into him with a five-minute tirade about how he had no right to make jokes when people were dying."
From that point on, Dilley said, he never looked back.
Throughout his four years at the University, Dilley has been forthright and outspoken about his homosexuality. But he is known less for his orientation and more for his activist work on campus. He is a staff assistant at the University Scholarship Center, a founder of the Center of Sexual Health Education at Watkins Memorial Health Center and an ex-student senator.
"I think I'm a representative of the gay community not necessarily because I want to be but because I'm highly visible." Dilley said.
Dilley, who is working on a master's degree in higher education, said that since he was a representative — albeit a reluctant one — one of his goals was to present the diversity within the gay community and prevent the stereotype that people in a minority group all have the same ideas and problems.
"People think if you're gay, you have this party line; if you're Hispanic, this is your culture. Period."
Dilley confronted the difficulty of being seen as "representative" when he was a student senator involved in the Darren Fulcher investigation.
Fulcher was elected student body president in Spring 1991, and Dilley was a student senator who ran with his coalition. In Summer 1991, students found out that Fulcher had been charged earlier that year with hitting his ex-girlfriend. Dilley and the rest of the Senate voted on whether to remove him from office.
Because he feared that the vote might divide the Senate, Dilley said, he advocated a closed ballot. However, he said, female members of Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas — which is now Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay Services of Kansas — wanted to know how the senators voted because the issue was personal to women. They were disappointed with his position.
Heather Lofflin / KANSAN
"Some said, "You represent us," Dilley said. "Everybody knows you're the gay senator."
Although what he learned during the Fulcher episode was invaluable, Dilley said, the development of the Center of Sexual Health Education was his proustest achievement as a student senator. As head of the AIDS task force in the Student Senate, Dilley found the funding to establish a permanent sexual health education center at Watkins, developed AIDS Awareness Week and remained on the center's advisory board until
Patrick Dilley, Lawrence graduate student, talks on the phone yesterday with a parent about financial opportunities available at the University.
December 1993.
"It's nice to look back and know that I was there and that I did something that saved people's lives," he said. "It sounds really corny until you see someone die from this disease."
Gaywyn Moore, the co-director of the AIDS task force at the time and a close friend of Dilley's, said he had found his niche.
"His talent is giving to other people," she said.
Today at the University
"Wear Jeans if You're LesBiGay Day"
Information table: "LesBiGay Rights Aren't Special
Rights" 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
rights — 9 a.m., 4 p.m.
in front of Wescoe Hall
Graduate Lecture Series: Randy Griffey, Department of Art History — 4 p.m.
Alcove B. Kansas Union
■ Forum: "Oppression of LesBiGay People Throughout the world" — 7-p.m.
Kansas Room, Kansas Union
KANSAN
Rain stops awareness week event
Kansansteffreport
A "Come-Out-a-Thon" scheduled for yesterday as part of LesBiGay Awareness Week was canceled because of rain.
Eric Moore, co-coordinator of the event, said he hoped to reschedule the event for tomorrow afternoon or later in the week, weather permitting.
The "Come-Out-a-Thon" was scheduled to take place in front of Wescosta Hall from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. yesterday. Coming-out stories of people from KU and the Lawrence community were to be read aloud.
Wearing jeans can make statement
Dress code meant to eliminate myth surrounding gays
By Denise Nell Kansan staff writer
If you are walking around campus today looking at everyone wearing jeans and wondering if they're gay, then you've gotten the point of "Wear-jeans-if-you're-LesBiGay day."
the day, a part of LesBiGay Awareness Week, is intended to dispel stereotypes about homosexuals, said Karl Woolz, assistant for gay, lesbian and bisexual concerns in the Student Assistance Center.
"It forces us to question our assumptions about sexuality," he said. "If the woman sitting next to you in class — who you think is straight — is wearing jeans today, and you start to wonder if she might be a lesbian, it forces you to start questioning whether that issue is important to you and culture at large."
The point of "Wear Jeans if you're LesBiGay Day" is that all people wear jeans," he said. "You can't tell by looking at someone what their sexual orientation is. There are people who
Eric Moore, Lawrence senior and co-coordinator of this week's events, said he hoped the day made people realize that anyone they knew could be lesbian, bisexual or gay.
claim they can tell by looking, and that's ridiculous."
But some students said that the day would affect their clothing choices this morning.
"I won't wear jeans because I'm not gay," Ty Harnden Overland Park junior, said. "I'm very conservative about my views on that."
Nicole Weigand, Wellington sophomore, said that in past years, she also had avoided wearing jeans on days specified as "Wear Jeans if You're Les-BiGay Day."
"It did affect my decision when I got up in the morning, not really because I didn't want people to think I was gay but because I was proclaiming the fact that I was not gay," she said. "I'm not saying that being lesbian, bisexual or gay is bad. I'm saying that having jeans day is a way for them to come out, but it's also a way for straight people to come out and say I'm straight." Obviously we live in a society where you have to do that."
Lisa Gorsuch, Overland Park junior, said she was caught unaware wearing jeans on campus one year on "Wear Jeans if you're LesBiGay Day." She was unhappy about it but didn't go home to change.
"I don't think people walk around and say 'Gosh, they're wearing jeans,'" she said. "I know what their point is, but I don't agree with the whole philosophy about it. I'm kind of opinionated because I think they're
Heather Lofflin/KANSAN
"Wear Jeans if You're LesBiGay Day"
is designed to show that determine sexual orientation by appearance is impossible.
pretty vocal, and I don't really think that day is necessary."
But Audra Widau, Topeka senior,
said the title of the day would not
make her think twice about wearing
jeans.
"I'm not really concerned what people think about my sexual preference," she said. "I think some people are probably scared of what people think of them. They're really concerned about people thinking that they're gay or bisexual. But I think that they're pretty narrow-minded."
KU Law rated 53rd in nation
Washburn ranks No.5 in law student survey
By Roberta Johnson
Kansan staff writer
A national student poll ranked the KU School of Law 53rd in the nation, but some KU students disagreed with the survey's results.
Students rated Washburn University No. 5 and the University of Missouri-Columbia No.23. The KU law school barely made the top third.
The April issue of the National Jurist printed the results of a Princeton Review-sponsored survey of 18,000 students from 165 law schools across the nation. The students rated their schools on the quality of faculty, research facilities and overall life.
"I think we've been doing a good job," said Robert Jerry, dean of law. "If we're in the top third of that kind of survey, I don't see it as a problem. We took an internal survey a few years ago of about 75 percent of the student body, and about 90 percent of them said they were satisfied."
According to the Princeton Review survey, the KU School of Law was slightly above average on the quality of faculty. However, some students said the quality was much higher.
They said that the faculty was qualified and that they were willing to work with students.
"The faculty is really approachable," said Craig Cartwright, first-year law student. "Overall they're pretty fair. On a national scale, our reputation is not really high. I've heard that professors don't do as much writing and research. But the less time they do those things, the more time they have to spend with us."
Linda Sheppard, second-year law student, said that she enjoyed the diversity in the faculty and the students.
"The faculty is really good," Sheppard said. "There are a lot of people from different areas. Another thing I enjoy is the diversity of the student body. The people are from different backgrounds. Some people are traditional and come straight out of the undergraduate school, and a lot go to work and then come back."
But Sheppard said the school could become even more diversified. She said Michael Hoefflich, dean ofat Syracuse University in Syracuse, N.Y., who will become the KU laum dean July 1, would help.
"I would like to see more minority students here," she said. "The new dean has talked about that, and I hope we'll see some changes."
Cindy Bryant, third-year law student, agreed with Sheppard.
"We need to work on — and they are working on — more diversity in the school," she said.
Other law students said they wanted changes in the services and programs available to them.
"I do know that we don't offer many externships and that students have trouble getting credit for their outside work," said Virginia McElhany, first-year law student. "We need to improve on that."
Sheppard said that the school needed to provide better help in finding employment for students.
"We need more creativity in finding jobs for graduating students," she said. "Law schools generally are in the habit of thinking everyone wants to work at the standard law firm after graduation."
Although some said they believed that Jerry worked well as the school's dean, others said they were waiting for Fohrlich to take his place in July and implement changes.
"It's a good school so far, but it will be interesting to see what kind of changes he brings," said Brennan Neville, first-year law student.