Kramer brothers' donations drive new initiative

When Larry Kramer, BR '57, ascended the stairs of the Beinecke Library on Tues., Apr. 3 to join Yale administrators, faculty, alumni, and students in a reception held in his honor, the occasion marked the end of a long and strenuous journey. Kramer and the University settled years of dispute by finally agreeing on terms for a donation—the famous AIDS activist and playwright is now set to leave all his political and literary papers to the Manuscript Collection at Beinecke Library, while his brother Arthur Kramer, SY '49, will give $1 million toward the Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies. The fund will pay for visiting professors in the program, as well as a full-time coordinator for the initiative.

COURTESY MBLGTCC/UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN Larry Kramer's, BR '57, donation of his political and literary manuscripts coincides with the formation of the Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies at Yale.

The papers and the funds come four years after Yale rejected Kramer's initial offer to endow a permanent professorship in lesbian and gay studies. At the time, the Administration suggested that such a position was too long-lasting for what it considered a not-yet-established academic field, a stance that led Kramer to a bitter and public berating of University administrators as timid and overly conservative.

But such discord was only a faint memory at Tuesday evening's ceremony. After a brief introduction by Patricia Willis, Beinecke's curator of the collection of American Literature, University President Richard Levin, GRD '74, took the podium and lauded the Kramers for their talent and generosity. He called Larry Kramer's papers a welcome addition to Yale's collection, "not only as art in itself but as testimony of the trauma of AIDS and the struggle against it." He also spoke on a surprisingly more personal level to gay members of the Yale community. "Lesbian and gay students have to feel like part of the Yale family and establish a vital presence on campus," he said.

Larry Kramer, after being introduced to a steady minute of applause, told the audience, "I am impatient by nature and do not enjoy long journeys," but that he was delighted at how the journey has turned out. "We have all come to our senses, thank God." He talked of his traumatic days at '50s-era Yale. "I wanted Yale to recognize me the way they recognized straight boys and girls," he said. As an 18-year old student "just two blocks from here," he recalled, "my feelings of rejection led me to attempt suicide." He said this was all the more ironic because now, suffering from HIV and advanced liver disease, "my health has not been so hot." "Now," he looked out to the crowd and declared, "I hope you will make this Initiative great. It is up to you."

Among those involved in the Initiative, optimism reigns. "The main thing about the donation" Marianne Larance, current chair of the Fund for Lesbian and Gay Studies (FLAGS) and professor of gender studies, said, "is that it will give us the financial resources to continue to fund visiting professors." Lafrance emphasized that professors were the key to creating a vital lesbian and gay studies program. "If you want kids to major in this, you have to have the professors to teach the classes," she said. The other crucial area of progress is in the new location for the program. Currently, FLAGS works from what LaFrance calls "decidedly cramped and moldy quarters" in the basement of the Music Department on Elm Street. The new Initiative has been promised offices on the third floor of WLH. This is convenient because the Women's and Gender Studies Department—under which lesbian and gay studies operates—is located there as well. Aside from visiting professors and a central campus location, the Initiative plans on funding research projects for undergraduates and graduates.

For Kramer's papers—which have not yet been turned over to Beinecke—there is much anticipation as well. Willis talked over the plans for the papers, explaining the processing that the manuscripts will undergo upon their arrival. "We will sort them according to categories that everybody can understand," she said. "They'll be separated into published material, correspondence, clipping." As with any other collection of papers, she said, "We'll establish a finding aide that we'll put on the Internet, and we'll house them in an acid-free environment." Willis noted that the papers will be valuable to future research especially because "they're unique in emphasizing social protest more than our other papers."

Withboth the Initiative and the papers—and the future of gay and lesbian scholarship as a whole—there is a feeling that much of the work remains to be done. Kramer noted that Yale has a long way to go before it becomes the "strong center of our validity that I have dreamed of." Still, the convergence at Beinecke remained of an indispensible symbolic value. "When you have the president of the University standing at a ceremony and unequivocally supporting you; when you have him saying the words `lesbian and gay'; when there is a ceremony and a dinner involved," Lafrance said, "you know it's big time in queer studies."

Back to News...