Every April, students at Texas A&M observe Gay Awareness Week in respect of the founding of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Aggies, or GLBTA, and the official recognition it garnered as a student organization.
“The original proposal to form this organization was made to Dr. John Koldus in 1976, and was promptly denied,” said Lowell Kane, program coordinator for the Gender Issues Education Center.
“The legal battle was initiated in February 1977, and the final decision was not handed down until April 1, 1985, when the United States Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal filed by Texas A&M, thereby upholding the decision by the Fifth Circuit Court that allowed the student group to be recognized,” Kane said.
Prior to this decision, Kane said “Texas A&M had no recognized ‘fraternal’ groups on campus – fraternities, social organizations and so on. This finding opened the door at Texas A&M for all other social groups to be recognized, including Greek life.”
The GLBTA has an active membership and is involved in campuswide programming, general informational meetings, social meetings, speaker invitations to campus, distribution of resource information, education and awareness raising about an often under-represented and misunderstood community of fellow Aggies, Kane said.