Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation

Association for the Study of Higher Education Outstanding Book Award Winner, 2020

This book outlines the beginning of student organizing around issues of sexual orientation at Midwestern universities from 1969 to the early 1990s. Collegiate organizations were vitally important to establishing a public presence as well as a social consciousness in the last quarter of the twentieth century. During this time, lesbian and gay students struggled for recognition on campuses while forging a community that vacillated between fitting into campus life and deconstructing the sexist and heterosexist constructs upon which campus life rested. The first openly gay and lesbian student body presidents in the United States were elected during this time period, at Midwestern universities; at the same time, pioneering non-heterosexual students faced criticism, condemnation, and violence on campus. Drawing upon interviews, extensive reviews of campus newspapers and yearbooks, andarchival research across the Midwest, Patrick Dilley demonstrates how the early gay campus groups created and provided educational and support services on campus–efforts that later became incorporated into campus services across the nation. Further, the book shows the transformation of gay identity into a minority identity on campus, including the effect of alliances with campus racial minorities. 

“Dilley has made a major contribution to both the history of higher education and our understanding of the experiences of LGBTQ students, making Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation an important work for researchers and practitioners alike.” (Michael S. Hevel and Charles J. Thompson, Journal of College Student Development, Vol. 61 (2), 2020)

“This is not only the first book published on the history of queer student organizations in higher education, it also focuses on a geographical region generally overlooked in queer history. … Dilley has done the hard work of laying out historical markers to delineate significant events in the history of queer student organizing. As a result, the visibility of non-heterosexual college students from past decades is more secure.” (Karen Graves, History of Education Quarterly, Vol. 59 (3), 2019)

“Patrick Dilley’s new historical study based on universities in the Midwest since 1969 helps transform the study and understanding of the diversity and complexity of both student life and student organizations on the American campus. In analyzing the trends from Gay Liberation to Campus Assimilation, he simultaneously provides a sorely needed study of previously overlooked students and their organizations. By bringing this story into the mainstream of higher education scholarship, he has expanded our understanding of the entire American college and university structures and cultures.” (John R. Thelin, Professor of Higher Education and Public Policy, University of Kentucky, USA)

“In this meticulously researched book, Patrick Dilley not only gives us the first comprehensive history of LGBT organizing on college campuses, he also provides a framework for understanding how these student groups formed, did their work, and ultimately changed their politics with the world around them. Thisis required reading for historians of education, activism, and sexuality.” (Nicholas L. Syrett, Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, University of Kansas, USA)

“In this book, Dilley articulates the evolution of non-heterosexual student movements and, at the same time, provides powerfully moving stories of individual student leaders of the time period. He presents nuanced evidence of the inherent tensions caused by local, regional, and historical contexts, as students struggle to define the purposes of these early activist groups and as these purposes evolve to meet contemporary needs of students. This comprehensive and well-sourced history is an excellent contribution to our understanding of social movements on college campuses.” (Robert D. Reason, Professor of Student Affairs and Higher Education, Iowa State University, USA)

“The explosive rise of queer university student organizations is one of the most important stories in the history of higher education during the 1960s-70s, yet it is shockingly understudied largely because of how difficult it is to unearth sources for these ephemeral groups. Patrick Dilley has broken ground for this research by compiling an impressive collection of accounts describing the surge of activism during these years at a variety of large Midwestern institutions.” (Jackie Blount, Professor of Philosophy and History of Education, Ohio State University, USA)

“Once again, Patrick Dilley has applied his considerable talent to bring forward important stories in the history of higher education and of what some scholars now call queer history. Through painstaking archival research, he focuses on students who were then–as queer students are now–engaged in the project of liberation. Dilley’s newest project connects past to present, honors student organizers and activists, and illuminates enduring themes in the evolution of student engagement with and against their own institutions. This book will bea key resource for understanding queer campus life in the second half of the 20th century.” (Kristen A. Renn, Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education, Michigan State University, USA)

 

Patrick Dilley is Professor of Higher Education and Qualitative Research, and Professor of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, USA.