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CUNY Panel Explores Challenges Facing Black Gay Males in Higher Education

NEW YORK – Taking its title from renowned author James Baldwin, on Wednesday, the City University of New York’s (CUNY) Black Male Initiative (BMI) presented the panel discussion “Nobody Knows My Name: Exploring Challenges Facing Black Gay Men in Higher Education” on Wednesday.

CUNY BMI is a university wide initiative designed to increase the enrollment and retention rates of students from groups that are severely underrepresented in higher education.

“There’s one thing that (author and scholar) Henry Louis Gates Jr. always says that I love. ‘There are about 35 million Black people in the United States and, therefore, there are 35 million different ways of being Black.’ I think that this forum and others we’re going to have are a reflection of that,” said Elliott Dawes, director of CUNY BMI.

“We don’t have a monolithic population here at CUNY and it’s important to present programming that is diverse and reaches out to the various segments of the African American and Latino communities at CUNY and in New York City,” he added.

Dawes said several of the attendees commented that this was the first BMI event they’ve attended, but they fully intend to participate in more going forward.

Moderated by journalist Antoine Craigwell, the panelists answered questions about why Black and Latino gay men feel especially marginalized in colleges and universities and how that can be remedied.

Dr. Juan Battle, professor of sociology, public health and urban education at the CUNY Graduate Center, shared a story about an experience he had when teaching undergraduates at Hunter College (part of CUNY). A group of students asked him if it was okay to put his name on a list of gay faculty that would be posted on National Coming Out Day. Several months later, he saw those students and asked why that list never went up.

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