Morehouse student recovering after antigay attack

A sophomore at Morehouse College in Atlanta is recovering from a fractured skull after being beaten with a baseball bat by another student who accused the victim of looking at him in the shower, officials said. The injured student was in the Morehouse infirmary Monday after being released from Atlanta Medical Center last week, three days after the November 3 attack, according to dean of student services Eddie Gaffney. Sophomore Aaron Price was charged with aggravated assault and released from the Fulton County jail on November 4 on $10,000 bond. Morehouse officials said Price has been expelled.

"It sounds like yet another version of the 'gay panic,' a feeling from a heterosexual student that someone made a pass, whether or not that was the case," said Cathy Renna, a spokeswoman for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. School officials said the case is still under investigation and that it is too early to determine if it was a hate crime.

The victim, a music student and member of the college glee club, told campus police that he was attacked as he prepared for a shower in the first-floor bathroom of his dormitory of the all-male, historically black college. Authorities could not say what the victim's sexual orientation is or whether that was relevant to the attack. Mubarak Guy, a friend of Price's, said some students "believe [the victim] deserved to get beaten up if he was looking in the shower stall.... But everyone thinks the bat was a little extreme. Nobody deserves to get beaten with a bat."