^1. This report was prepared for the Committee by Martha Ackelsberg, Smith College, and David Rayside, the University of Toronto. Kenneth Sherrill, of Hunter College, and Howard Gold, of Smith College, offered invaluable assistance with the data analysis. The report was developed, reviewed, and edited by all of the Committee on the Status of Lesbians and Gays in the Profession, including Mark Blasius, City University of New York–LaGuardia, chair; Cathy J. Cohen, Yale University; Shane Phelan, University of New Mexico; Sarah Slavin, State University of New York at Buffalo; Christine Di Stefano, University of Washington; and members of the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Caucus for Political Science, especially Kevin Williams, Washington University. Greg Lewis, American University; Murray Edelman, Voter Research and Surveys, New York; and Robert Bailey, Columbia University, contributed very helpful time and ideas. We are grateful to Michael Brintnall and the staff of the American Political Science Association for collection and initial coding of the survey data.

2. For purposes of this report, we use the term “sexual minorities” interchangeably with the phrase “gays, lesbians, and bisexuals.” In general, the terminology with respect to sexual identities is in flux, and there is considerable debate about what terms are most appropriate. In some contexts, “sexual minorities” is used more broadly, to include, as well, transgendered persons and others of nondominant sexuality. Sometimes the term “queer” is used as the umbrella term. However, because the surveys on which we report asked only about gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, our comments refer only to members of those groups.

3. By comparison, the APSA established committees on the status of blacks and of women in 1968 (the first appointments to which were made in 1969), and on Chicanos (later Latinos) in 1969 (with first appointments made in 1970).

4. Largely the former, since the overwhelming majority of responses (359 questionnaires, 78% of the total) came from questionnaires distributed at the annual meetings—a good response rate for questionnaires distributed at these meetings. As a consequence, the sample is younger, and probably more professionally active, than the profession as a whole. In addition, it most likely consists of those with the strongest feelings on the topic, whether positive or negative.

5. See Taylor, Verta and Raeburn, Nicole, “Collective Identity in the Gay and Lesbian Movement: Coming Out as High-Risk Activism,” manuscript, Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, April 30, 1993, p. 3 Google Scholar.

6. The Departmental Services survey of department chairs, distributed at the same time as the Committee's survey, had a response rate of 56% among this same group. Of the 512 chairs of departments that did not offer any degree in political science, only 24 responded to the Committee's survey, while 157 responded to the Departmental Services questionnaire.

7. Of the membership sample as a whole, approximately 44% were tenured, 28% were untenured, 21% were graduate students, 3% were non–tenure track faculty, and 5% were part-time faculty. Approximately 64% of the sample was male and 36% female. Sixty-two percent were working in Ph.D.-granting institutions, 15% in master's granting, 22% in four-year colleges, and .5% in two-year colleges. As for the chairs' sample, 17% were from Ph.D.-granting institutions, approximately the same percentage from MA-granting institutions, 59% from four-year colleges, and 2% from two-year institutions. Forty-six percent of responses from chairs were from public institutions, 12% from religious, and 42% from private.

8. “Committee on Women Historians' Report on the Lesbian and Gay Historians Survey,” Perspectives (April 1993): 13–15 Google Scholar; and Taylor and Raeburn, “Collective Identity.”

9. Before it created this Committee, the APSA Council appointed a task force to develop a charter for it. The Committee on the Status of Lesbians and Gays in the Profession is the only APSA-status committee for which a charter was required before it could be established.

10. Incorporation of attention to issues of sexuality, for example, challenges conventional understandings of the distinction between public and private, and contributes to a broader conceptualization of our definition of “the political.”

11. Two people resigned from the Association after the survey was distributed, attributing their resignations to, among other things, the inappropriateness of this research. See Gruenwald, Oskar, “Forum: Opposition to APSA's Domestic Partners Policy,” PS March 1994 Google Scholar. The Committee's reply was printed in the same “Forum.”

12. Taylor, and Raeburn, , “Collective Identity in the Gay and Lesbian Movement,” p. 3 Google Scholar.

13. See also Benz, Dorothee, “Sex and Community Before and After Stonewall,” paper presented at the 1994 Annual Meeting, American Political Science Association, New York, N.Y. Google Scholar

14. “Committee on Women Historians' Report,” p. 13.

15. Taylor and Raeburn, Table 3. They note that 48% of men, as opposed to 36% of women, reported experiencing discrimination on the basis of gender orientation. But they suggest that this could be a consequence either of the fact that men are much more likely than women are to be out to their colleagues, or of the difficulty women may have of distinguishing between discrimination based on gender and that based on sexual orientation. A similar pattern (greater tendency for men to be fully out on campus, and also for men to report having experienced discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation with greater frequency than do women) exists among political scientists. See below.

16. Among historians responding to the survey, 64% Were out to chairs; among sociologists, 54% were out to most colleagues.

17. The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual Political Science Caucus has 161 people on its mailing list, some of whom are heterosexual.

18. Degrees of being “out” are difficult to quantify. The figures that follow were derived from a question that left room for a number of possible interpretations. We included in the category of “out” those lesbians, gays, and bisexuals who said they were “out to everyone,” as well as those who said they were out to at least three of the following five: chair, most colleagues, most students, most staff, senior administration. Included in the “not out” category were those who identified themselves as “out to no one,” or “out only to other gays and lesbians” on campus.

19. Among sociologists, 60% of those in non–tenure track positions are out to most colleagues, as opposed to 38% of those who are untenured but in tenure-track positions, and 48% of those with tenure. Perhaps those who are in non-tenure track positions feel they have nothing to lose by being out, since nothing more is at stake for them at the institution; perhaps we are seeing an age- or cohort-related difference: those in non–tenure track positions are mostly younger faculty members who, having “grown up” in a social/political context in which “coming out” is more common, are less fearful than their elders, and will carry that tendency to be “out” into the tenure-track ranks once they are offered such positions.

20. Among those with tenure, 58% reported that their job would definitely or probably not be at risk, and only 6% said it definitely would be at risk.

21. Of the historians and sociologists surveyed in 1992, 50% and 22% respectively claimed a degree of exclusion from such networks.

22. For a discussion of the inclusion of gay/lesbian/bisexual issues into the political science curriculum, see Hunt, Ron, “Gay and Lesbian Politics,” PS, Vol. XXV, No. 2 (June 1992): 220–24Google Scholar. The Committee on the Status of Lesbians and Gays in the Profession is also undertaking a curriculum infusion project to address these concerns.