1981: Conservative University Newspaper ‘Outs’ Gay Students

The Dartmouth Review, a conservative weekly student newspaper funded by off-campus right-wing sources (see 1980), publishes the names of the officers of Dartmouth College’s Gay Straight Alliance (GSA), along with material that had been stolen from the GSA’s confidential files. Many students, faculty members, administrators, and family members did not know that the “outed” students were gay until they read the article in the Review. One outed student reportedly contemplates suicide over his exposure. Review founding editor Greg Fossedal later says, “I felt terrible about it,” and editor Dinesh D’Souza says he and his fellow editors did not know that the GSA had an exemption from the university over making its officers’ names public. According to D’Souza, he merely wanted to attack the secrecy of the funding of the GSA, and accuses the organization of using university money for “gay parties, gay orgies, or whatever.” [Dartmouth Free Press, 9/20/2006] In 1984, the Review will be investigated by the state of New Hampshire for allegedly wiretapping a GSA meeting and printing a transcript of the audio recording (see 1984).