UNHAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE BOARD OF CURATORS

50 years ago this week, the University of Missouri threw down for the ‘principle’ that being gay was a spreadable mental illness

This sounds like something from the year 1873. But it happened a half-century ago and – painful to admit – I was there.

The University of Missouri, my alma mater, struck a blow for decency in 1973 by refusing to allow its hallowed halls to be sullied by those who might victimize college-age children like me. In the name of in loco parentis, our university guardians would ward off those who intended to infect students with the mental illness of homosexuality.

And no, I’m not kidding.

On November 16, 1973, the university’s Board of Curators voted to deny recognition to the group Gay Lib at the Columbia campus (where I attended) and the Gay People’s Union at UMKC. This wasn’t about funding, mind you, just about allowing gay rights groups to meet on university grounds.

The Curators acted on the advice of University Counsel James Newberry, who had testified three months earlier at an 8-hour hearing on campus, the Associated Press reported.

“Newberry argued that homosexuality is abnormal and an illness that requires treatment,” the report said. “He said recognition of Gay Lib would harm the university and the community.”

The university wasn’t playing around: “Newberry questioned (Gay Lib leader Larry Eggleston) closely about his personal life over the objections of his attorney” and “most of the objections were overruled” by the hearing officer, the report said.

After the Curators’ denial, four students from the Columbia campus, represented by the ACLU, sued the university. The Gay Lib ban would be upheld in 1976 by a federal judge in Kansas City but was overturned in 1977 by a 2-1 federal appeals court decision.

The deciding vote in that one was cast by the great Judge William H. Webster, the pride of Webster Groves and Washington University, who is still going strong at 99. He would be named FBI director the next year by President Jimmy Carter as part of an amazing career that spanned seven decades.

Incredibly, the university would defend its noxious position all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which declined on February 21, 1978, to hear the case. But not before our proud state institution put forth this argument, at taxpayer’s expense, according to wire reports:

“The university had appealed, arguing that “Gay Lib’s activities, not philosophy, would likely result, based on medical testimony, in the commission of felonious acts of sodomy.” It also argued, “that membership in gay groups would likely cause students with latent homosexual tendencies to become overt homosexuals.”

For real. And that was as recently as 45 years ago, not quite prehistoric times. The nation had a Democratic president (Carter) and Missouri had a Democratic governor, Joe Teasdale. (In related news, I had started the RFT the previous year).

For me, the real nostalgia was driven home by the 50th anniversary of the university’s officially sanctioned bigotry. I was editor-in-chief of The Maneater, the UMC student newspaper, back then. Dan Viets, an unparalleled activist and Columbia attorney, was student body president.

The bigotry of that era wasn’t some dark-ages mystery. It was plain for all of us to see, which is why defending Gay Lib was one of our most passionate causes. (To be clear, our advocacy paled next to the courage of the late Eggleston, one of the true LGBTQ pioneers.)

“It’s ironic how proud the university is of being inclusive today when just 50 years ago they were very aggressively exclusive,” Viets told me this week. But we agree that the university was more sincere about exclusion in 1973 than it is about inclusion in 2023.

And both of us still think that the Curators owe the LGBTQ community (and all students) an apology for what their predecessors did back then. It’s an apology, of course, that will not be forthcoming in the current political climate.

This brings us to the relevant question: Has Missouri really moved on from the core bigotry regarding the LGBTQ community? Amid the constant pounding of the culture-war drums by politicians, it’s not at all clear.

The names and words have changed but has the underlying sentiment? Maybe people were just more honest 50 years ago, such as when the Sedalia Democrat reported on September 9, 1973, that it had surveyed its readers and “not one” of 27 respondents was OK with Gay Lib recognition.

And saying “no” to recognizing gay rights wasn’t quite enough for everyone.

“I understand that the Board of Curators is appointed by the governor,” one reader stated. “If this is true, I think we need a new governor, one who would not even permit such a dirty subject to be thought of. Are there no decent people left in the world?”

So, there was that point of view at the home of the Missouri State Fair. But in Jefferson City, home of the state government, we’re still seeing lots of legislators advancing an endless barrage of anti-LGBTQ measures – by no means confined to their anti-trans political gravy train.

No need to name-check them here, but every time one of the cultural warriors makes a splash on social media, it harkens back to those days a half-century ago. You see, there were plenty of people who doth protest too much on this subject back then. And we weren’t shy about noticing.

Collegiate humor being what it was, we had an expression for the zealots back then, albeit an unoriginal one: “Better latent than never.”

Even half a century later, some things haven’t changed.