Jim Andris, Facebook

Initiative to Include Homosexuals into the SIUE Affirmative Action Plan

The efforts of Students for Gay Liberation (SGL) were to have a synergistic influence on awareness of the lack of homosexual rights on the campus at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville (SIU-E). In particular, and though many were eventually working behind the scenes to help him, one young assistant professor, James Andris, launched a relentless campaign to raise awareness of the need for protections of gay rights in the affirmative action plan then being developed. He was the sole "out" professor to do this, even though he knew of more than fifty gay and lesbian faculty members.

Andris and his then domestic partner, David Jonathon Miller, had taken Larry Whitsell, President of SGL, into their home as a student roomer. Andris had many conversations about gay rights with Larry and his student colleagues as they planned Gay Awareness Week and afterwards. Andris met and talked to national figures Franklin Kameny and Barbara Gittings about the problems faced on his campus while those two were speaking and guiding workshops at SIUE. It would not be inaccurate to say that the students raised the professor's consciousness sufficiently to awaken him to the need for action.

Gay liberation was part of the intellectual atmosphere of the times. Hundreds of lesbian and gay student organizations and a significant number of lesbian and gay faculty organization had emerged across the unversities of the Western World. As I interacted professionally with my collegues, I occasionally discussed these matters. I was patient to point out that there were real and serious problems of discrimination against homosexuals on our campus. I quoted the statistic that one tenth of the students and faculty was gay. I talked about how very hard it had been for me to be open about my sexual orientation. I spoke of the need to have affirmative action educational seminars for chairpersons, student advisors and medical personnel on ways to be supportive to those with homosexual orientation.

Privately, I had made enough social connections to know that there were at least 55 gay faculty members on campus. In fact, they made up the greater majority in some departments. Two of the Foundations faculty had told me that they could never support me for Chair because of my open sexual orientation. One spoke of "the possible embarrassment to the department." The other asserted with a deep blush and perspiration-laden upper lip that these "sexual matters needed to be kept private." I continued to pursue this matter vigorously. I was gaining a reputation on campus as a gay rights activist.

On Feb. 6, 1974, John S. Rendleman, the colorful and effective Chancellor of SIU-E, issued an important memo to the University community with subject, Affirmative Action Policies. Rendleman reminded the community of the charge given the Affirmative Action Task Force in December, 1973 to develop a written Affirmative Action Plan, of the University's standing commitment to assisting minorities, and that the commitment now includes "matters involving prejudices founded in sexual considerations as well as those involving matters of race, religion, color, or national origin." It was a detailed memo that announced the appointment of important people, that signaled that a major effort was underway, and that left no doubt that the University intended to root out discriminatory practices in hiring, firing and in its daily business. It certainly was welcomed by women and minorities on campus.

There was a lot of work to do, and people worked hard and sincerely on this process. Procedures and forms for recruiting minorities and women had to be developed and put in place, and people had to be trained and encouraged to use them. Effective grievance procedures had to be improved and dissmeninated. The campus community, administrators, faculty and students had to be educated and sensitized to a, for some, new range of problems, issues, and expected changes in behavior. Countless hours of meeting times were spent and reams of paper printed and disseminated.

If no one had also raised the question of where was gay rights in all of this, still, a lot of good needed to be done and was eventually done. But someone did raise that question tirelessly, consistently, and in the end, with some degree of effectiveness. That person was James F. Andris, and this story is necessarily focused through his eyes, because those were the eyes that saw the enormous problem and set out with strong odds against him on a solitary quest to a distant goal.

For my own part in this,

Andris had read the Feb. 6 memo from Rendleman carefully, and had been trying to get a clarification as to whether the phrase "sexual considerations" included a concern for gay rights. Chancellor Rendleman had made his staff member, John Paul Davis Chairman of the Affirmative Action Task Force, and eventually, Andris was able to arrange a meeting with him to discuss this issue. Davis, an attorney, took a legal view of the situation: the matter was still being litigated, and he thought eventually gay rights would become a protected category. He also informed Andris that the President's Office would not clarify the phrase "sexual considerations" unless there was support from the Faculty Welfare Council of the University Senate.

On June 21 Andris sent a detailed memo to Dickie Spurgeon, Chair of the Faculty Welfare Council. It is a dense and carefully argued memo the purpose of which

is to call to the attention of the Faculty Welfare Council the fact that gay rights are not currently adequately assured by the Affirmative Action program at SIUE, and to propose that the Faculty Welfare Council take the position that gay rights are protected by Affirmative Action. Subsidiary purposes are to tke the position that this situation is morally wrong, to review the history of my attempts to clarify the status of gay rights, and to propose steps to rectify the situation.

Then, events took a fascinating turn. The active blacks on campus had a committee, The Equal Educational Opportunities Committee (EEOC), and the women had a Status of Women (SOW) committee. They were both responsible for input into the Affirmative Action Plan, and answered to the Faculty Welfare Council of the Faculty Senate. Dickie Spurgeon, a professor of English Literature, was appointed the Chairperson of the Welfare Council. He proposed to form a new committee, an amalgamation of SOW and EEOC. And he made me chairman!
Let me tell you the shit hit the fan. These people were outraged. Publically, they pointed out that I had been active in university politics for only a short time and that there were much more deserving and competent people who deserved the position. Privately, however, some of them were outraged that Spurgeon had put them under a homosexual. One black woman, said "How dare you classify the problems of women and blacks with homosexuals! They are sick. I'm a religious woman."
The proposed committee never met. I had made a tactical error by not immediately seizing the opportunity. I was inexperienced, a little shaken by all the flack, and I lay back to see what would happen. Dickie had second thoughts, for the public objections they were making had some weight.
But in the wake of all this the point became somewhat moot. John Rendleman's legal counsel had advised him that a public disclaimer in the Plan regarding discrimination against homosexuals was advisable. When the plan came out there was a single sentence stating that the University does not discriminate for reason of sexual orientation or political or religious belief. They had covered their tail with minimal risk to themselves. The problems of educating the faculty, administration and students to the serious problems of discrimination were completely circumvented.
But there it was on paper! I had made a difference. Even if discrimination would go on privately, at least anyone with the guts to make an issue of it could point to this Affirmative Action Plan. Only one gay person, however, called to congratulate me. The others kept their closet doors ever so tightly closed.
The most ironic twist to this story occurred at Martins' bar in St. Louis a few weeks later. There on the dance floor with me was the University legal counsel dancing with another man. Bear in mind that John had vigorously opposed nearly all my points in public meetings. As soon as he spied me, he came over and spoke. He said, "I trust you'll be discrete about this, Jim."
His friend said, "He's one of the biggest ones down here tonight."
"Well, of course, John," I said with mock sweetness, "I'll be just as discrete as you have been helpful!" I never told a soul but Rosanda about the incident for years, until long after the counsel had left the University.

In particular, I spoke to Rosanda Richards' Sexism in Education class every quarter for nearly ten years. In one of those classes was a lady named Carolyn Griffin. She had recently discovered she had a gay son. She talked to me after the class and thanked me for helping her. Carolyn has become a nationally known member of Parents of Gays. I took her and Rod, her husband, to meet another set of gay parents, Art and Marion Wirth, at the St. Louis MCC building, and sat through their organizational meetings. Prentice-Hall has published their book Beyond Acceptance.

Early in 1975 I contracted with the school newspaper, The Alestle, to write a series of articles on gay rights. I researched hard, and wrote articles on every aspect of homosexual lifestyle, from religion to sexual behavior. People began to ask me to speak to their classes. Several of these articles are included in the sidebar to this webpage.