Fans of the
number 5-ranked Gonzaga University basketball team
have been asked to stop yelling "Brokeback Mountain"
at opposing players. The reference to the recent movie
about gay ranch hands was chanted by some fans
during Monday's game against Saint Mary's, and is apparently
intended to suggest an opposing player is gay.
The chants were
the subject of several classroom discussions at the
Catholic university over the past week, and the faculty
advisers for the Kennel Club booster group urged
students this week to avoid "inappropriate chants"
during the Bulldogs' Saturday game against Stanford,
which was nationally televised on ESPN. "We implore the
students of the Kennel Club to show the nation this weekend
what makes Gonzaga different," Kennel Club advisers
David Lindsay and Aaron Hill wrote in a letter in the
student newspaper, the Bulletin. "We challenge the
students of the Kennel Club to exhibit the class, the
creativeness, and the competitive drive that has
become a foundation of this great university."
Mark Alfino, a
professor of philosophy at Gonzaga, said the matter had
been widely discussed by faculty and students. "Many faculty
members have brought up the discussion in their
classes," he said. "They find none of the students
have been comfortable with the chant, and that's a
good sign."
Ryan Olson,
president of Helping Educate Regarding Orientation, a
gay-straight alliance on campus, said the chants are just
the latest incident that shows GU is struggling to
make gays and lesbians welcome on campus. In a letter
to the Bulletin, the HERO membership wrote,
"This is not even remotely the first time that Kennel
Club chanters have chanted homophobic phrases at basketball
games." Said Olson: "A lot of people in the Kennel Club say
it wasn't them" who chanted "Brokeback Mountain,"
adding, however, "But there's something to be
said about apathy as well. Students didn't stop people
from saying it."
In Friday's
Bulletin, senior Callie Monroe wrote a column
calling the chants a case of "outright
discrimination." "Imagine yourself as a homosexual
individual in the midst of your peers, classmates, and
friends during this 'Brokeback Mountain' cheer,"
Monroe wrote. "I simply do not understand how a
student body claiming to live by Jesuit principles of
acceptance and respect for all can allow an incident
like this to happen and remain silent." (AP)