Haverford friendly for gay students

HC_Alum
Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:48:38 +0000

Is it possible for you to visit the campus prior to making a decision? Have you tried contacting SAGA to ask a few students their perspective?

[Haverford College: Sexuality and Gender Alliance (SAGA)](http://www.haverford.edu/organizations/saga)

1) HC was one of the 1st schools to have a gender-neutral housing policy; the rationale being that to assume there is no sexual tension between individuals of the same-sex living together is an assumption that may sometimes be wrong. This policy applies to upper-class students but 1st year students can request to live in singles in Gummere.

2) You may want to consider use of words like “conservative” and “liberal”. Those words don’t mean the same thing to different people and the same person can have both traditionally “liberal” and “conservative” view points. For example, African Americans as a demographic group are traditionally “liberal” in terms some social /economic policies but as a demographic group are generally more conservative when it comes to same-sex marriage. “Conservatives” generally believe in small government but some social conservatives want government policies in place when it comes to some medical decision-making and same-sex relationship between consenting adults.

3) I’m wary about forwarding you to this but did you check out the links I posted on the thread about “Food, dorms and social life?” A student who graduated in 2007 and identified himself as gay discussed his experience on campus. To be clear, this isn’t meant for you to make a generalization about campus culture but rather to provide evidence that at least for this one student, he appeared to have a pretty good time at HC.