Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: discrimination at CMU
From: corwin+@CMU.EDU (Scott Safier)
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 13:17:09 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Originator: scotts@MORPHEUS.CIMDS.RI.CMU.EDU

In article <1dn3qsINNj0v@mizar.usc.edu> adolphso@mizar.usc.edu (adolphson) writes:

   In article <CORWIN+.92Nov9131742@MORPHEUS.CIMDS.RI.CMU.EDU> 
   corwin+@CMU.EDU (Scott Safier) writes:

   > [...] A 1990 CMU graduate, who was interviewed anonymously by
   > Scanlan, says, "Guys who were straight but not that great in the acting
   > field had a stronger chance of staying than the guys who had some
   > talent but were effeminate."

   Professional, world-class programs in the performing arts --
   and Carnegie Mellon's Drama Department is both -- have to take
   their student actors' "personal mannerisms" into consideration.
   It is a brute fact of life.  

1) CMU *was* a world class drama school.  It is no longer.  Its
departments of set design, costume design, lighting etc... do not
receive the resources to make them top programs.  Acting is the only
program which receives much attention, and even there, produces people
that can be "type cast" -- pretty faces and pretty bodies with no real
talent. 

2) CMU should judge people based upon their talent, not their sex or
sexual orientation.  (Women were kicked out for being too fat, but
this was never a complaint about a man)

3) Currently, any drama student who attends a meeting of cmuOUT, the
gay/lesbian/bisexual student group on campus, faces the risk of being
kicked out of the drama school.

4) exactly what type of "personal mannerisms" are you talking about?
In my original post, I wrote about a student who was kicked out
because he was too "camp"y and that he needed to work on his "physical
strength and masculine colors".

  Three more facts which I did not post.  The head of the Drama
Department at the time was a closet-case who was eventually fired for
having sex with his male students.  People in the closet are often the
most hostile to other gays/lesbians.
  Second, a total of 18 people were kicked out of the department in
1981 (the year Dick Scanlan was told to leave).  Of the 18, all were
gay men or overweight women.  Systematically removing the gay students
has nothing to do with "brute facts of life."
  Third, from the Theater Week article on the above "campy" student,
"But Eric had not done any "campy" scenes, and in terms of physical
strength, he was one of the more muscular men in our class, the only
one, gay or straight, who regularly visited CMU's gym."

Just to belabor the point, I don't understand what "personal
mannerisms" are being evaluated, how they can be objectively
evaluated.  If you could explain, I would appreciate it.  I believe
that the use of "personal mannerisms" was simply the catch-phrase for
being asked to leave because the men were gay.

Scott Safier                                   corwin+@cmu.edu
Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University
        
member, T.S.A.K.C.  B0/1 f+ w- g k+ s- m(+) e++

"We don't necessarily discriminate.  We simply exclude certain types of
people."
   Lt. Col. Gerald Wellman, an ROTC instructor at the MIT,
   on the military's ban on gays
   Newsweek, May 25

Newsgroups: soc.motss