A Chicago resident who attended an AIDS activist conference at North Carolina State University ( NCSU ) last month said that he and the other attendees were constantly verbally attacked by the school's students.
Brett Calka, a member of Howard Brown Health Center's board of directors, told Windy City Times that he and other members of the Campaign to End AIDS Youth Action Institute were subjected to name-calling and other forms of verbal harassment during the July 4-8 conference.
'There were comments about all the participants,' Calka said. 'At first, people did not know why we were there, so we put posters on the door of our dorm. We experienced homophobia when we went to lunch; guys would say, 'We didn't know it was Sissy Day today' and call us 'faggots.''
Calka added that he thought the Raleigh, N.C., school 'was chosen for a reason. Our project—which is supposed to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS as well as homophobia—started in North Carolina.' He also said that the harassment never got physical.
'It started from the idea that HIV is a gay disease, and [ the students ] thought that every single person who was part of the institute was HIV-positive, which was totally not true,' said Calka, who admitted surprise that such a reaction would occur at a place where people are highly educated. 'I never experienced [ so much ] homophobia. I had never experienced it from almost every single person who passed by.'
NCSU Vice Provost for Diversity and African-American Affairs Jose Picart told Windy City Times that he is 'absolutely surprised' by Calka's statement that so many people taunted the conference attendees. However, Picart is not entirely sure that students are to blame for what happened. 'We don't have a lot of students here during the summer; our residences are actually filled with campers from various academic and athletic camps,' he said. 'So I've made a call to the housing director asking where they were living. ... It's worth looking into.' ( At last check, Picart did not have the information. )
Picart added that, 'Just as in society, we have a group of students who don't understand or value the GLBT lifestyle. Our campus is no different from any other campus we've been on. There are people who go out of their way to harass others, but...I can't even say that they were [ NCSU ] students.' He also said that school administrators will meet with an LGBT student subcommittee either this month or in September to discuss the issue further.
There will soon be an LGBT student center, Picart added. The plan was endorsed by the faculty and student senates, and 'we recently got funding to establish the center,' he said, adding that he hoped the facility would start by this winter.