What’s it like to be gay at NIU? That’s what the newly-developed President’s Task Force on Discrimination and Harassment Based on Sexual Orientation wants to find out tonight at 7 p.m. in Holmes Student Center Room 505.

At the meeting, members of the task force, which is made up of 30 NIU students, faculty and staff, will identify themselves and present their concerns regarding gay, lesbian and bisexual harassment and discrimination.

Tim Griffin, NIU ombudsman and chair of the task force, said the group was formed several months ago at the request of NIU President John La Tourette.

Griffin said it is difficult to get a handle on the extent of the problem because of the number of offices where complaints might be handled.

He said in the year-and-a-half that he’s held his office, there have been enough disturbing examples of harassment toward gays to investigate the matter.

Griffin spoke of epitaphs written on doors, threatening phone messages and the defacing of the Gay and Lesbian Union office door.

“One of the charges the president gave to the task force was to determine the nature of the problem and the number of incidents,” Griffin said.

Griffin said discrimination and harassment are “measured with the same yardstick” as any other type of discrimination. There are no special guidelines, he said.

Griffin also pointed out that if someone were to say for example, “I believe homosexuality is sinful and wrong,” and so on, it would not be harassment. Such type of speech is clearly protected under the First Amendment.

“Some complaints don’t constitute harassment,” Griffin said. However, he said that because of fear of embarrassment, victims do not always come forth.

“We as an institution, as a community want to be open to everyone who is qualified to be here,” Griffin said.

“We can’t correct problems without getting some feedback,” Griffin said.

He stressed that the task force makes no value judgements on sexual orientation. “We’re not trying to change anyone’s lifestyle or religious beliefs.”

In conjunction with the task force’s work is a survey which asks about attitudes and incidents relating to sexual orientation. The survey has gone out randomly to members of the NIU community.

Griffin said the task force will have a lot of questions regarding NIU’s gay community like: “How do they view the environment and how big of a population are we talking about?”

According to Griffin, 10 to 15 percent of students on college campuses nationally are homosexuals. He said the task force doesn’t know what the numbers are at NIU.

Griffin said he thinks tonight’s forum and the survey, which won’t have complete results for a few months, will give the task force some direction.

“We’re not going to go on imagination. We need incidents and examples,” Griffin said.