Homosexual Activists to Rebuild UCI Shanties

In a conciliatory letter to student activists, UC Irvine Chancellor Jack Peltason once again rejected demands that gay and lesbian couples be permitted to live in on-campus family housing, but he said the university will explore hiring an advocate to represent the homosexual community.

The activists, however, were unhappy with Peltason’s three-page letter and vowed to reconstruct a cardboard shantytown on campus Monday to protest the chancellor’s stand.

“I think it’s air. I think it’s rhetoric. We recognize it for the empty words that it is,” said student activist Napoleon Lustre of the letter Peltason sent this week to the Shantytown Committee, a coalition of student groups.

Peltason wrote that unmarried couples will not be given the benefits accorded to married students, such as the option of living together in the Verano Place apartments, a family housing complex. The chancellor said he was personally committed to equal treatment regardless of sexual orientation, but that student housing policy is determined by state law and the state Board of Regents.

“I understand your desire to have domestic partnerships be incorporated into the benefits and housing policy, but that cannot happen at this time,” Peltason said. “Your lobbying efforts need to be directed at changing the state law to recognize these partnerships.”

The chancellor said he will not lobby for such a change, but he did offer to help provide students with information on the legal, social and economic implications of domestic partnership policies.

Concerning the issue of gay and lesbian faculty at UC Irvine, Peltason said more homosexual role models are needed on campus but noted that the university is prohibited by law from asking about an applicant’s sexual preference.

But activist Jacqueline Sowell said Peltason’s responses didn’t go far enough.

“We decided it would be all or nothing,” said Sowell, a 30-year-old senior psychology major.

A group of Verano students who sent Peltason a letter of support last week were pleased he stood fast in banning non-traditional couples from Verano.

“We like to consider it a victory,” said Deanne Frakes, 22, a resident of the Verano complex. “He could have changed his mind.”

Despite their displeasure with Peltason’s response, members of the Shantytown Committee were encouraged by the tenor of his remarks.

“I think the chancellor has changed his tone from one of flat indifference to one that shows concern,” Lustre said.