Eliana Siebe-Walles, History 250: The Historian Craft, Spring 2023

As the bricks were thrown at Stonewall the summer of 1969, a professor named Louis Crompton in Lincoln, Nebraska, was quietly working on a revolutionary idea. It was a class that would later become known as the “Proseminar on Homophile Studies,” and its teaching at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln generated an incredible amount of legal controversy within the state. Specifically, the course generated fights over whether or not the material and themes were promoting homosexuality. Given the legal controversy however, the course inadvertently paved the way to a legal reckoning that would work to protect Nebraska’s LGB community. While intended to be simply educational, Louis Compton’s “Proseminar in Homophile Studies” became an essential catalyst of the Nebraska pro-LGB legal movement in the 1970s.

The Proseminar in Homophile Studies in and of itself was a revolutionary course, not just in Nebraska, but in the country. Initially proposed and taught by UNL professor Lou Crompton, it was the second such course in the United States, after UC Berkeley hosted a similar course the previous semester. [1] The course focused on understanding homosexuality in an interdisciplinary way, invoking English and psychology to teach the students. An English professor by profession, Crompton was then able to enlist his knowledge of queer literature to supplement the course. [2] In order to minimize controversy, the professor specifically taught the class to not promote homosexuality— regardless of Crompton’s own sexual orientation. This was a particularly notable attribute of the course; that it did not seek to normalize homosexuality or advocate for legal protections of LGB people, but rather simply teach university students about it.

Even though the professor intentionally did not endorse homosexuality, Crompton hoped it would be of help for the homosexual community. [3] At the time, Crompton stated he was teaching the course not just to help young professionals understand homosexuality from a variety of viewpoints, but also to help young gay people get counseling about their sexuality. [4] These two reasons resonated within the general community, particularly on the professional side, where some supporters of the class spoke about how they had received little training about homosexuals within their profession. In essence, Crompton was training professionals such as counselors, religious leaders, doctors, and other “helping professions” [5] to better understand how to help their LGB patients.

One aspect to note within the LGB movement is that while the proseminar generated significant legal successes in the communities built around “aberrant” sexualities, the course made little to no mention of transgender identities. [6] Instead, it was focused on the “homophile movements'” of the time, teaching the movements through a host of lenses about homosexuality, such as the religious viewpoints, history, legality, psychology, biology, sociology, and anthropology. [7] While the omission of gender identity is notable, it was not uncommon at the time for contemporaneous gay rights activism groups to wholeheartedly reject gender non-conforming, transgender, or non-binary individuals within their movements. This division of movements and specific rejections from the LGB groups played a major role in Professor Crompton’s class only focusing on sexuality when it was taught. Additionally, it is also the reason why this analysis generally references the homosexual community as the “LGB” community, rather than the term “queer community,” as this difference makes the language more accurate for the time periods discussed.

Given the theme of the course, there was naturally a significant controversy over its teaching. Several politicians in particular were enraged and incredibly outspoken on the issue, arguing that Profesor Crompton was teaching students to be in favor of homosexuality.[8] Two politicians even went so far as to demand the class roster from the university in order to release the names of the students enrolled, and to notify parents that their children were taking the course. Given the controversy, the proseminar only ended up being taught just for a single semester, fall 1970. Following the initial course though, a second course was taught in 1978— although Professor Crompton was not allowed to teach it, and the professors involved removed it from being a cross discipline course. Instead, the new course only focused on the psychology behind it, and expanded the topic to talk about sex as a whole, not just LGB sex. [9]

While this may be seen as a failure in the proseminar’s impact, in that the course was only taught one time, and following courses were required to teach about heterosexuality as well, the course in and of itself sparked an enormous legal battle within the Nebraska Unicameral. In the 1971 legislative session, Senator Terry Carpenter and Henry Pedersen cosponsored LB443, a bill that was a direct reaction to the proseminar. Extreme in nature, the bill sought to ban any mention of homosexuality within the university classroom, stating “The purpose of this bill is to prohibit by law the Board of Regents from setting up courses in the study of aberrant sexual behavior, with the exception of the College of Medicine.” [10] In essence, it sought to silence any potential classroom discussions before they even started.

Even though LB443 was intended to strike down discussion, it began to generate quite a ruckus on the topic, both inside and outside the Unicameral. A large part of this discussion was intended to drum up negative attention towards the bill as a whole though, because Senator Terry Carpenter specifically drew up a number of public legislative hearings to do so. [11] Given the generation of conversation however, LB443 began to have the opposite effect of its original intent, and unintentionally helped to create support systems on campus for LGB students. After the initial bill was proposed, students began to meet with Professor Crompton in order to discuss forming a student organization. [12] Together, these students formed the University of Nebraska’s Gay Action Group in January, 1971 [13], which eventually morphed and expanded horizons into today’s current LGBTQ+ group, SpectrumUNL. Fundamentally, these students jump started an institution within UNL that would become essential for many LGB students in the following years, even up until the modern day.

This impact of founding a gay student organization has also had significant impacts within the structure of the university itself. By founding the first gay rights group in UNL, it became a foundation for other services to be offered to LGB students later. For example, during the AIDS crisis, Gay and Lesbian Student Association (formerly named the University of Nebraska Gay Action Group) [14] advocated for fair treatment of students diagnosed with AIDS. These efforts resulted in UNL creating the first gay and lesbian resource center, providing students with a refuge in a time of extreme fear. Without the initial catalyst of the proseminar though, the creation of any services for LGB students likely would not have happened. Therefore, the impact of the proseminar can be clearly seen not only in the foundation of the resource centers, but their continued existence to this day.

In addition to support being generated on campus, other LGB rights groups were beginning to form simultaneously off UNL’s property, likely due to the increased visibility caused by LB443. Jump-started by the proposed legislation, action groups such as the Lincoln Gay Action Group and the Lincoln Legion of Lesbians formed within the following few years, and provided much needed safe spaces for non-student LGB people in Lincoln. In 1972, these groups had reached large enough levels of membership that they were specifically inviting local politicians to speak at some of their meetings about their views of homosexuality. [15] This was a remarkable show of strength in a time period where homosexuality was still viewed incredibly harshly.

Striking down LB443 though, was an incredibly important moment within Nebraska queer legal history. While Nebraska was by no means LGB friendly during this time period, striking down the bill set a precedent within the legal movement that protected talk of LGB people within University contexts, as well as legal contexts. In terms of academic freedom of speech, the ability to converse is key. If even the mention of homosexuality is criminalized within the legal system, then it is incredibly hard to find community, tolerance, and then build a movement on top of said values. Additionally, this victory built momentum within the LGB community to then fight for more rights, as striking down a bill intended to reduce LGB rights then sets a legal precedent that makes it hard to introduce similar bills in the future. Fundamentally, this strikedown set valuable stones in the foundation protecting freedom of speech in academic contexts, and in making it harder to discriminate in the future.

Discussion of sexuality, and who would support it had gathered so much attention within Nebraska that even politicians in the area were beginning to showcase their support for anti-discrimination laws. Republican Senator John DeCamp within Nebraska’s 82nd legislative session of 1972 had gone even so far as to openly support anti-discrimination bills for women gay people. [16] Given the later decriminalization of sodomy within Nebraska in the following 5 years, this is a notable mark of early change in supporting the gay rights movement from a local politician. Senator DeCamp was also only one example, as during a 1972 presidential run, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota had stopped within Nebraska, and is noted to have supported anti-discrimination laws during his campaign there. [17]

In 1977, the next major bill regarding homosexuality was introduced in Nebraska. Contrasting to the legislation proposed in 1971, this bill was not intended to target homosexuality, in either a positive or negative form. Instead, it was an updating of criminal penalties within Nebraska. Rather than keeping sodomy a crime within the state, the revision repealed all sodomy laws— making same-sex activity completely legal. This was one of the most progressive stances of sodomy laws at the time of its introduction, as only a few other states had even begun to consider similar decisions. As the 1980s rolled around, the influence of the initial catalyst caused by the Proseminar in Homophile Studies began to wane. The fight was not over for the LGB activists within Nebraska, but reactionary attitudes began to take hold in culture, particularly so as the AIDS crisis began to ravage LGB communities across the country. Given terrifying nature of the crisis, and its stigma as a “gay disease,” anti-gay attitudes had begun to flare up around the country—including Nebraska and at UNL. [18] By the time the crisis began to die down in the early 1990s, the LGB community had been utterly devastated, and the legal strength of the movement had begun to die with it. In the year 2000, the death of the Proseminar’s initial sparking in protest can be easily traced within the Nebraska Constitutional amendment to ban the legalization of gay marriage. Legislative Initiative 416, as it was named, was successfully passed by voters 70 to 30 percent. [19] It would not be overturned until Obergefell v. Hodges—a national-level Supreme Court case— in 2015.

The Proseminar in Homophile Studies course, taught by Louis Crompton at UNL, became the catalyst for heading off major anti-LGB legislation in Nebraska in the 1970s. In the end, LB443 was defeated by a vote of 27-15 within the Nebraska Unicameral. [20] However, the impact of this bill had far reaching implications well beyond the proseminar the legislation was written to stop. In response to the proposed bill, LGB activism bloomed within Lincoln, meaning that one professor’s dream of teaching future professionals in Nebraska founded a whole generation of LGB activism in the state.

Endnotes

1. Tetreault, Pat. “Forty Years of Queer History in the Heartland: UNL and Lincoln, 1967-2010.” OutHistory.
2. Crompton, Louis, “Statement of Professor Louis Crompton for the University Archives…” 1992, RG 12-10-55, Louis Crompton Papers, A&SC, UNL.
3. Crompton, Louis, “Statement..” 1992, Louis Crompton Papers.
4. Smitherman, Bill, “Homophile Course Offered,” The Daily Nebraskan, March 26th, 1970.
5. Crompton, Louis, “Statement..” 1992, Louis Crompton Papers.
6. Course syllabus, Fall 1970, RG 12-10-55, Louis Crompton Papers, A&SC, UNL.
7. Course syllabus, Louis Crompton Papers.
8. Women’s Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln: “Fight for Sexual Freedom,” March 5, 2014.
9. Emery, Deb, “Controversy over course cools down,” The Daily Nebraskan, March 15, 1978.
10. LB 443 introduced by Terry Carpenter, first read 27 January 1971, RG 12-10-55, Louis Crompton Papers, A&SC, UNL
11. Krab, Emma. “UNL Library Exhibit Shines a Light on a Tradition of LGBTQ Literary History, Success.” News Nebraska, December 29, 2021.
12. Crompton, Louis, “Statement…” 1992, Louis Crompton Papers.
13. Tetreault, Pat. “Forty Years of Queer History...” OutHistory.
14. Tetreault, Pat. Interview. In-Person, April 2023.
15. Political Candidates Night Flier, The Lincoln Gay Action Group, 1972, RG 12-10-55, Louis Crompton Papers, A&SC, UNL
16. Senator John W. De Camp Correspondence, April 20th 1972, RG 12-10-55, Louis Crompton Papers, A&SC, UNL.
17. Senator McGovern’s Stand on Gay Rights, February 2nd, 1972, RG 12-10-55, Louis Crompton Papers, A&SC, UNL.
18. Towne, River. “UNL’s Response to the AIDS Crisis: The Early to Late Eighties,” Fall 2018, UNL.
19. Cromartie, Michael. A Public Faith: Evangelicals and Civic Engagement. 2003.
20. “Unicameral defeats ban on ‘aberrant’ sex courses,” The Daily Nebraskan, March 15, 1978.

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