Noted Scientist Quits Salk to Found Gay School
Simon LeVay, who garnered instant fame with his discovery indicating homosexuality might be caused by anatomical differences in the brain, today leaves the Salk Institute to establish a school for gay students taught by gay teachers in West Hollywood.
LeVay--widely applauded by the gay community--promises to once again make a splash, and has already raised eyebrows in the scientific world because he will sharply curtail his own research to launch the school.
“It’s a dramatic change--initially, I was surprised,” said Dr. Torsten Wiesel, president of the Rockefeller University in New York and a Nobel Prize winner in whose lab LeVay once worked. “Just to come out and openly deal with this issue is a relief for him after all these years of not talking about it. . . . We lose a very good scientist but, on the other hand, this is a very important issue and he will do good things.”
LeVay’s plans call for the school to evolve into a fully accredited university. The school, known as WHIGLE, or the West Hollywood Institute for Gay and Lesbian Education, will open its doors Sept. 8, he said.
“We are going to be educating gays and lesbians and helping them to reach more useful, influential positions in society,” said LeVay, a modest Cambridge University graduate whose brain research last August fueled the nature-versus-nurture debate--whether homosexuality originates in the genes or is caused by environment and parenting.
Starting up the school means LeVay--a dedicated scientist for more than two decades--must give up most of his research, taking a leave of absence from Salk. He said he does not expect to return if the school succeeds. LeVay will trade his technical expertise and the solitude of his lab for the fickle world of fund-raising, initially hoping to raise at least $300,000.
On Monday, the West Hollywood City Council is expected to vote on whether to provide a building for the school.
LeVay, 48, jokingly refers to his abrupt career change as a “midlife crisis.” But he clearly believes that he can milk his newfound celebrity for dollars to support the school.
And so, he took the radical step of telling his main scientific sponsor, the National Institutes of Health, that he would not seek renewed research grants. Instead, he will finish up a study now under way that involves imaging the corpus callosum, the nerves connecting the two hemispheres of the brain.
“I might feel scared about it except there is such enthusiasm in the community,” LeVay said.
The school has already attracted about 40 potential faculty members, including professors from UCLA and USC. LeVay, who is openly gay, predicts the school will offer about 50 different courses--mostly held at night--that might draw about 500 students in its first semester. He plans personally to teach a course on how the brain governs sexuality.
Some courses will focus on primarily gay issues; others will explore the role of gays in various fields such as literature and art. Still others will resemble the general courses offered at any adult community college.
“I think it’s a terrific idea,” said Torie Osborn, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center. “The timing is right, the community is so alive, so activated that the mix of academic offerings . . . will meet a real need in the community.”
Gay activists point to community colleges that cater to other minorities--blacks, women, American Indians--and say the time has come for homosexuals and lesbians to start up their own school.
“It will create an unbiased, non-heterosexist environment for students to learn about themselves as well as science and academic issues affecting them,” said Robert Bray, a spokesman for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force in Washington, D.C. “This doesn’t exist anywhere in the country. It’s unprecedented.”
After LeVay published his startling findings last August, he became a celebrity overnight. Studying cadavers, LeVay found that a segment of the hypothalamus is half as large in homosexual men as it is in heterosexual men. The neurosurgeon theorized that the size might determine sexual preference.
Wooed by talk shows and national magazines, he discussed how he had discovered that the brains of gay men were structurally different from those of heterosexual men.
In the gay community, too, LeVay found that his instant fame catapulted him to prominence. Suddenly, he was meeting plenty of activists, including Chris Patrouch, an associate transportation planner with the city of West Hollywood. Patrouch hatched the idea for a school, and he convinced LeVay that it was “doable,” LeVay recalled.
“We need to unite and come together, developing our culture,” Patrouch said. “Once we have done that, we can integrate and become full participants in a transformed society.”
At that point, LeVay said, his school no longer would serve a purpose.
“I wouldn’t mind if eventually our college faded away because there was no need, because gays and lesbians were so accepted in our society.”
