Right on, Elizabeth.

I also am a recent graduate and I've been attending Michigan Football games since I was in the womb (literally). I grew up with the impression that U-M embodied grace and decency. It was rare that you saw the Wolverines run up the score against a lesser team, and, as I sat in a heavily adult-populated section of season ticket holders in the stadium, it was rare that I heard offensive remarks coming from the fans around me. When I enrolled at U-M I was happy to make the move over into the student section, but I quickly became familiar with the regular offensive comments coming out of fellow students' mouths. I attended most of the games with a group of girls, many of them queer, and it was at times so uncomfortable to be in the stands amongst so much homophobia, racism, and sexism that I might have felt safer staying home.

Once, while trying to squeeze into our assigned section (only a couple of minutes after kickoff) I politely asked the people that were spilling over into our seats (there was not enough room for even half of us) if they wouldn't mind creating a little extra room so we could squeeze in to our spot. I heard the girl that I tapped on the shoulder turn to her friend to pass along the request..."watch out, a bunch of lesbians are trying to squeeze in next to us." ....really?? I tapped her on the shoulder again..."Excuse me, did you just say that 'a bunch of lesbians are trying to squeeze in next to us'?" ....wide-eyed: "oh no, i said that some *girls* are trying to squeeze in"...sure. I, a straight woman, just *happened* to hear "lesbians" in the place of "girls" and noticed your utter disgust at the fact that gay people were going to be standing next to you. Would you rather us set up a tent outside and have all the gay fans watch the game from their tailgate? ...This experience was actually kind of amusing at the time, since I got to see the girl's face after being caught in the act and then my friends and I got to stand next to her in all of our gayness for the rest of the season...but unfortunately, plenty of other experiences that I've had and witnessed at the Big House were far more offensive and scary and in no way amusing.

The key, however, that I think is missing from the viewpoint is that this is NOT a problem specific to only sporting events at the U--though the homophobia (/racism/sexism/xenophobia...) in such settings is certainly amplified and fans find it easier to disassociate their actions and words with oppression when they see others participating along with them and feel themselves disappearing into the crowd (not to mention other general effects of collective effervescence exhibited at sporting events..). The reality is that the student body on the whole embraces a culture of oppression and refuses to recognize or change it. It would be great to see the improvements that Mr. Harvilla suggests here, but simply cracking down on students participating in offensive chants, etc, is not going to correct the deeper cultural problem (though it would certainly be a step in the right direction!). Neither is requiring that students fulfill a one-course Race and Ethnicity requirement or other similar half-assed academic programs. Perhaps balancing enrollment statistics a little bit more and pressing for real diversity at the U would help... Whatever is done, it needs to be a more comprehensive cultural overhaul, and it would be nice to see the change come from students themselves rather than from the U administration.

since when is cocksucker a bash against homosexuals?
It is a slang term for the act of fellatio--calling someone a cocksucker is the same as calling them an asshole or a motherfucker, etc. This entire article is completely ridiculous--what it should be about is a parent can't really take a young child to a hockey game anymore without lying to them about what the students are yelling

Who knew that the term "cocksucker" was a pejorative moniker for male homosexuals? And here I thought that it was just an example of "low" language practiced by the ignorant and the immature. In my day, we used to chant "Hey GLGF" during the chorus of Mony Mony. Of course, I cringe at the thought now, but I certainly was not demonstrating intolerance and hatred toward the sexually promiscuous at the time. I was just being young and stupid.

And as for the gay bashing fan...it seems to me that Mr. Harvilla made a huge leap in determining that this one person in a stadium full of fans was an alumnus. And even if he was, does it really reflect upon all Michigan alumni? Does it signal a need for more sensitivity training or a changing of the guard? I think, based on Mr. Harvilla's two examples of rampant homophobia at UofM, that he may have overreacted. Perhaps he could do with some "oversensitivity training." But that is just my opinion.