Study blasts bastions of bigotry

Gay and bisexual university lecturers are suffering intolerance and discrimination from colleagues up to the highest levels, a study revealed this week.

Alan Skelton of Sheffield University's higher education research centre said his interviews revealed a catalogue of homophobia. "This study shows that structural changes still need to be made in higher education to ensure that the specific forms of institutionalised oppression experienced by gay and bisexual men are addressed," he said.

One interviewee said he was excluded from the research assessment exercise because his manager said he was "obsessed with being gay". Another was the subject of a complaint from a member of the theology department after he listed his interests in a course prospectus as queer pedagogy. The complainant said the word queer would be offensive to some students.

Elsewhere, a lecturer who had applied to be a warden in a hall of residence was asked at interview by the registrar to explain his "gay lifestyle".

Another kept finding mysterious notes in his pigeonhole containing biblical passages that he described as "virulently homophobic".

Several men in the study reported that their gay scholarship had been marginalised with different, covert rules applying to the dissemination of their work. Some said they were offered only "graveyard slots" at academic conferences. "This sends out the message that gay scholarship is something to hide, something to be embarrassed about," Dr Skelton said.

Greg Woods, professor of gay and lesbian studies at Nottingham Trent University, said the issue was one of academic freedom. "There has been discrimination in the job market against gay lecturers for many years," he said. "It has certainly been made clear to me in the past that the reason I have been turned down for jobs was because my research interest was gay literature. And I know this has happened to other people."

Professor Woods said discrimination tended to be found in the upper echelons of universities where it could do most damage. "People in senior management tend to be older and often have an obsession about respectability that is not found among younger academics." Gay scholars were often accused of blurring their personal and professional lives, Professor Woods added. "And yet it is acknowledged that this kind of obsessiveness or quirkiness in other disciplines often produces the greatest work."

Sally Hunt, assistant general secretary of the Association of University Teachers, said she regularly had conversations with lecturers who perceived they had been treated differently over promotion matters because of their sexuality. "Whether this is overt bigotry or not, institutions do not have the right to make judgements about sexuality," she said.

The Sheffield study, which comprises 40 interviews with gay and bisexual male academics from a range of mostly "old" universities, and is part of a broader study, begun in 1997, into masculinity in higher education, found at least one gay lecturer who received homophobic evaluations from students.

Dr Skelton said: "It is perhaps surprising that even in a public document the students concerned were prepared to voice their disapproval of gay male sexuality and possibly 'out' the member of staff concerned."

Dr Skelton stressed that the academics in his study were a minority within a minority because all but one claimed to be "out" to some degree. It is believed that only about one quarter of gay and bisexual academics are "out", the rest being "closeted".

The AUT said a "substantial proportion" of universities had no specific category within their equal opportunities policies to address discrimination on the grounds of sexuality.