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Students Find Discrimination Toward Homosexuals
Story and Photos By Yonatan Arnold
Gay, lesbian, straight, homosexual or heterosexual. Do you think it would matter what your sexual orientation is when buying a car or even going to eat with your companion?
At the Third Annual SLAM presentations, five MHC students presented findings from a study asking those questions -- to find out if “discrimination would be shown toward homosexual couples in everyday life situations.”
Baldwin Says Discrimination is Widespread
Yael Baldwin supervised the student study of discrimination in the Mars Hill area.
Q: Do you think this is an important issue here on campus?
A: Absolutely. I think it is a global and local issue. I very much appreciated how at the end of the presentation Kasey Boston mentioned that we have the power to address this issue locally. I have spoken with students who feel there is prejudice and discrimination on campus and in the local community. Whenever members of our community are discriminated against, it is up to all of us to take it seriously. It is my belief that all people deserve to feel safe on our campus.
Q: What do you think faculty members, suchas yourself, can do to help address this issue for the students?
A: Well, I personally offer two courses that specifically take up this concern: Social Psychology and also the course entitled the Psychology of Gender and Sexuality. I also bring this topic up in my other courses as well. We are educators and integrating multiculturalism into our courses is of utmost importance. Outside of the classroom, I have posted a rainbow flag on my office door in an effort to show that my office is a safe place to talk.
Q: Do you consider this one of your most successful projects that have had your students do, and if so, can you please name one aspect why?
I want to make it clear that the students were asked to do a group project based on something we spoke about in the course. They chose to take up this issue, came up with, and executed the research on their own. I am proud of them. I think it is very interesting research and it was brave of them to present their research at SLAM. I thought they did an excellent job. Their work is informative and perhaps transformative, a lovely combination, indeed!
Q: From what you could tell, was the interaction between the students taking part good, and if so - why do you think?
A: You’d have to ask them.
Email Q&A By Yonatan Arnold
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The group of students, Kasey Boston, Ryan Cauble, Lara Brockwell, Abby Toms and Victoria Franz, conducted the study a year ago for a Social Psychology class under the supervision of Dr. Yael Baldwin, chair of the psychology department.
The results were very telling. The group presented its findings at a presentation entitled "A Fair Deal" in the band room in Moore Auditorium on Wednesday, April 15, for SLAM.
The room was full to standing room only with students, staff and faculty members. Because seating was at capacity, people were standing up against the walls and sitting on tables – the room was full of an attentive group at Mars Hill College.
The students presenting their work conducted the study by having three sets of couples visit three local venues -- a car dealership in Mars Hill, an apartment complex in nearby Weaverville, and a restaurant in Mars Hill. The group chose not to identify by name the places it patronized in the study.
The students presented themselves as a gay male couple, a lesbian couple, and a straight couple to observe the treatment they might get in trying to obtain help or services. To signify to the person providing the service that they were heterosexual or homosexual, the couples held hands or identified themselves as boyfriends or girlfriends and announced that they would be getting married soon.
“We tried our best not to get a reaction,” one student said. “We didn’t make-out or anything.”
About 100 people gathered for the presentation "A Fair Deal" at SLAM.
The first venue they visited was the car dealership. All of the couples followed the same premise. They presented themselves to a salesperson as having no credit, asking to test drive the same car. All of the three couples told the salesman they needed a co-signer.
The gay couple walked in and was not offered a handshake by the salesman, described as a middle-aged, white male. They were not allow to test drive the car and were told that only a co-signer could test drive it. They were not given a business card.
The straight couple test drove the car and was given a business card. The students said this couple was treated with open arms. The lesbian couple test drove the car, but the salesman assumed the young women could not drive a manual transmission, so they were initially discouraged from driving.
After the three couples had visited the dealership, they confronted the salesman, but he denied that he had discriminated and he “got angry and very defensive,” according to one of the students.
The group then took the study to an apartment complex to seek a two-room apartment and move in at the end of the month. They asked the same set of questions -- from rental prices to pets.
The gay male couple had to wait a short while to get helped. The older woman helping them quoted a higher price and lectured them about partying. The straight couple was given “the deluxe tour” and was offered a lower price for rent.
As for the lesbian couple, they received poor service, according to the students, and, like the gay couple, were given a talk about not partying when living in the apartment. The couple was told many times “not to hang off the balcony.”
The final destination of study was a local restaurant to eat dinner. The couples arrived in five minutes intervals after each other. They wanted to determine the level the service each received and the reaction of the patrons.
The gay couple had to ask to get a drink refill, and the waitress did not treat the two promptly when checking out. The waitress also appeared to talk in the back of the restaurant to other staff whom then were observed laughing.
The straight couple had good service, and the waitress was concerned about the couple’s needs. The straight couple was asked three times if it needed anything. The couple did not have to ask to get refills; refills were given without asking.
The lesbian couple did not get treated as luxuriously. The two women had to wait to get seated, did not receive very attentive service, and others who were eating “gave them disgusted looks.”
The group’s study concluded that the couple that had the most discrimination was the homosexual male couple.
Once the findings were presented, the audience in the packed room was given a chance to ask questions and have the panel of five students answer. It opened up a discussion of whether discrimination toward gays and lesbians occurred on campus.
Students in the study group and in the audience suggested that support could be found in a new organization on campus, “Out Is In,” which also has a Facebook account. It has not been recognized as an official student organization.
Numerous questions were asked about the way the study was conducted and about what could be done on campus. One student asked whether the results might differ if an interracial homosexual couple had been involved.
Kasey Boston, one of the students involved in the study, said there will be another similar study and it will include a black female.
Ryan Caudle was the group member who answered most of the questions from the audience. Caudle said that students can do the most good by making friends with people not like them.
He said he thought the people who interacted with the students didn’t realize that they discriminated based on another person’s sexual orientation. Caudle then said that it is an “unconscious” reaction that most people are not aware of but should be.
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