Scott Stadium shook with euphoria during Saturday's victory over Florida State, but an unwelcome guest from the past cut through the cheers: "Not gay" was once again audible during the Good Ol' Song. The "not gay" chant is categorically unacceptable, and its resurgence must be nipped in the bud.
A brief history lesson may be in order, as one possible explanation for the resurrection of the slur is that recent classes are further and further removed from the University-wide effort to get rid of it. For many years, the bigoted phrase appended to the line "All is bright and gay" was shouted in such unison that it was audible on TV broadcasts. This brought a great deal of shame down upon the school, and in 2001 Student Council formed an ad hoc committee to coordinate efforts to eradicate the chant. Over two years, the committee engaged a variety of student groups in discussions about the words. Thanks largely to students coming to realize how hurtful the chant was to many of their peers and subsequently speaking up when their neighbors at football games used it, the cry became mostly muted.
Yet, judging from Saturday's game, the chant appears to be on the rise, and this is cause for alarm. All issues of negative publicity and embarrassment aside, it is unconscionable that members of our community, especially those who are gay and lesbian, are still subjected to such intolerance. There is no defense for the chant -- it is not playful, it is not harmless and it is not anything except mean-spirited. At a time when the University is engaged in a battle against hate, hate threatens to gain a foothold in what should be one of our most unifying events.
It is therefore important that we remind the contemporary student body about the ignoble legacy of the "not gay" chant and ensure that everyone understands why it was done away with the first time. These efforts don't need to reach a frenetic level as the problem is not yet once again endemic, but it's a conversation that needs to happen before the chant regains permanent traction. It may take something as simple as a reprise of the 2001 flyering campaign of the University's ACLU chapter in which flyers were posted bearing such things as a picture of a woman captioned "not female," or a picture of a black student captioned "not black," to drive home the point of how insulting such a chant could be. It may take more sustained action in engaging students in a new set of dialogues. Either way, complacency will likely only result in more students coming to believe that the chant is fine.
Lest anyone accuse us of overreacting, consider the connections between a culture that condones intolerance and the rash of hate incidents which have consumed the University earlier this semester. The "not gay" chant is deplorable enough on its own merits, but its reappearance will represent a defeat for the University's efforts to promote diversity. A Cavalier Daily lead editorial in the fall of 2003 stated triumphantly that "the chant was barely audible" at the first home game of the season. Now, facing a reversion to a bigoted past, students must quickly act to educate each other and make it unconditionally clear that "not gay" is not acceptable.
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