VCU Gay Alliance of Students Collection

This collection contains legal documents, correspondence, applications, and other materials related to the VCU Gay Alliance of Students (GAS) and its court case against the university from 1974 to 1976. The case, Gay Alliance of Students v. Matthews was one of the first LGBTQ+ student organizing cases to reach the federal appellate level. The ruling effectively changed existing law in the five states within the jurisdiction of the Fourth District Circuit: Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

The Gay Alliance of Students (GAS) was founded as a student organization in September 1974. GAS was organized to create a "unified support community for men and women of all sexual orientations, serve as an informative resource to the university and surrounding community, and assist the university in creating a positive institutional image by addressing and combating discrimination based on gender and sexual preference." On September 5, GAS member Barbara C. Kriegel and faculty advisor Stephen M. Lenton submitted an application for registration to the VCU Office of the Dean of Student Life. In the six years since VCU founding in 1968, 144 groups had completed this process, which granted organizations the ability to reserve space on campus, apply for student activity funds, and access a variety of other services. Instead of approving the application, the Office of Student Life referred it to Vice President of Student Affairs Richard Wilson, who brought it before the Board of Visitors (BOV). GAS was the first group denied registration by the VCU BOV, which voted 7-2 against recognizing the organization.

On October 17, 1974, VCU’s BOV denied GAS’s application on the grounds that the "existence of GAS as a recognized campus organization would tend to attract other homosexuals to the University." The decision prompted responses from students and campus organizations, some of whom voiced opposition in the Commonwealth Times. On April 9, 1975, local attorney John M. McCarthy filed a suit on behalf of GAS, arguing that VCU violated the students’ First and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Represented by Virginia’s assistant attorney general, the university defended its denial by offering four reasons: “1) GAS would increase opportunities for homosexual contact; 2) the existence of GAS as a registered organization would encourage some students to join the organization who otherwise might not join; 3) being involved in GAS could be socially and psychologically harmful to individuals; 4) and GAS would tend to attract more homosexuals to VCU.” (Hevel and Cain, 60).

On November 7, 1975, Judge District Judge D. Dortch Warriner issued a summary judgement in the case. While he ultimately upheld VCU’s decision, his ruling was shaped by recent case precedents in Healy v. James and Gay Students Org. of U. of New Hampshire v. Bonner. Warriner determined that GAS was constitutionally entitled to five benefits of a student organization: “1) access to University facilities for meetings and events; 2) free advertising in the student newspaper and on the campus radio; 3) use of bulletin boards; 4) being listed as an organization in the student directory; 5) and being provided a booth during orientation.” However, he ruled that the denial of three other benefits did not violate the First and Fourteenth Amendment rights of the students: 1) receiving advising from university staff, 2) the ability to apply for funds from the student government, and 3) the ability to register. Ultimately, “[GAS] had achieved most of the rights that would normally accompany registration, though not registration itself as Warriner allowed VCU to treat GAS as a second-class student organization” (Hevel and Cain, 63). Following the decision, GAS spokesperson Walter A. Foery and Lenton issued a press release noting that the group would appeal the decision.

The ACLU declined to take up the case, prompting Foery and Lenton to seek support from other organizations, including National Gay Student Center and the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund. To help cover expenses, much of which Foery had been paying himself, they organized a dance to raise legal funds. After attorney John M. McCarthy unexpectedly closed his practice, Richard E. Crouch assumed the case and represented GAS before a three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit of the US Court of Appeals on June 7, 1976. On October 28, 1976, the court ruled in favor of GAS, citing that VCU’s denial of registration was a breach of the students’ First Amendment rights.

The legal victory allowed GAS to return to its original mission of providing education and community to LGBTQ+ students at VCU. In 1979, GAS changed its name to Lambda League. By the 1980s, the Gay Alliance of Students was known as the VCU Gay Student Alliance.

Additional research information

The VCU Gay Alliance of Students Collection is housed in the Special Collections and Archives housed in Special Collections and Archives at James Branch Cabell Library. The finding aid is available here.

More historical information on GAS and the 1974-1976 court cases is available:

• “’We Didn’t Think It Would be Well Received’: The Gay Alliance of Students’ Legal Victory over Virginia Commonwealth University, 1974–1976” by Michael S. Hevel and Timothy Reese Cain via University of Arkansas’s ScholarWorks@UARK
• ”Inside the fight to win VCU’s official recognition of the university’s first LGBTQIA student organization” by Brian McNeill via VCU News.

Copyright

This collection is of mixed copyright status and includes items that are in the public domain as well as items that are of unknown copyright status. See individual items for item-specific copyright information.

Credits

This collection was gathered and donated to VCU Special Collections by Walter A. Foery. Katie Condon digitized the materials in 2025. Irina Rogova created the metadata in 2025. Much of the text for this landing page was sourced from the finding aid and from research conducted by Michael S. Hevel and Timothy Reese Cain.