Stonewall publishes guide to gay-friendly universities
Gay rights charity Stonewall has published an online guide which rates UK universities on how gay-friendly they are.
The guide, gaybydegree.org.uk, uses a range of factors to measure how universities make gay students feel welcome, including whether there is an LGBT society, if LGB-specific careers advice is given and whether staff are trained in diversity issues.
Luke Tryl, Stonewall’s education officer, said: “With the introduction of tuition fees, students are increasingly consumers and as such expect universities to cater to their needs.
“For the first time, students can now compare how gay-friendly every UK university is by browsing this groundbreaking new guide.”
Stonewall has not ranked each university in a league table and no institution scores full marks on a ten-point checklist.
However, the best universities were found to be Cardiff, Bradford, Birmingham,, Cambridge, the University of Central Lancashire and King’s College London.
But Huddersfield and Teesside were rated the lowest and an LGB student representative at Teeside told Stonewall that there was neither a ‘want nor need’ for an LGBT society. The representative also said that a dedicated LGB society would draw too much attention.
