Four professors voiced their support this week for members of GU Pride who have pushed to change what they consider a campus culture sometimes intolerant of the LGBTQ community in an open letter condemning the university’s response to students rallying last week.

The letter, addressed via e-mail to Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson Tuesday and also sent to numerous faculty and administrators, including University President John J. DeGioia, criticized the university’s decision to bar about 15 students from entering Healy Hall on Oct. 11. The students went to Healy hoping to provide DeGioia with a T-shirt and signatures for a petition outlining their demands, but were barred from entrance by about 10 Department of Public Safety officers. DeGioia’s Chief of Staff Erik Smulson accepted the signatures and T-shirt about 15 minutes later.

A DPS officer present said the students were not permitted to enter the building because of an event that was taking place inside.

The letter was signed by Tommaso Astarita, a professor in the history department, and associate professors of English Dana Luciano, Patrick O’Malley and Ricardo Ortiz.

“For a peaceful student group to be prevented by a large number of police officers from entering the open spaces of the Healy building in order to deliver to the president’s office signatures to a widely shared campus petition is appalling,” the professors said in the letter. “The campus authorities collectively treated these students as enemies and suspects.”

The professors called for more university support for the LGBTQ community on campus. “It is simply and deeply unjust for the university to place so much of the burden of fighting intolerance onto young students and a few willing allies, with hardly any institutional support,” they said in the letter.

The student’s petition called for earlier notification of hate crimes, extended resources to the LGBTQ community, mandatory events to educate students about the LGBTQ community and a revised LGBTQ working group.

Olson said he takes faculty concerns seriously and intends to engage in further dialogue with students and faculty.

“We have scheduled another meeting with students, faculty and administrators for next week,” he said. “We are making progress in talking through the key issues students have raised.”

Astarita said the treatment of the group of students was part of the reason that the professors felt the need for the open letter. “Speaking only for myself . I think we felt that we wanted to raise these issues . to offer the students some sort of public support after they were treated in a humiliating, inimical manner,” he said.

Luciano and Ortiz also spoke at a GU Pride protest on Oct. 2, when the club began gathering signatures for the petition.

Jason Resendez (COL ’08) publicity chair for GU Pride, said, “I feel our faculty allies eloquently articulated what we’ve been feeling these past weeks, putting into words our frustration and bewilderment with the university administration.”

According to Resendez, the English and history departments have both voted and unanimously backed GU Pride’s demands, and six other departments plan to vote on the proposal soon.

“We now feel that when we participate in working groups or meetings with administrators, we are simply being used as a cover so that administrators can claim that progress is being made,” the letter said. The professors wrote that they feel “that the university is not seriously interested in addressing, let alone resolving, the root causes of these recurrent problems.”

Students, including Resendez, are optimistic that the letter will influence the administration. “I hope their words will prompt Dr. Olson and President DeGioia to realize that this isn’t merely a student concern,” he said. “Hopefully, support from our faculty allies.will push the administration to address our concerns in a timely and sincere manner.”

While the four faculty members have met with various members of GU Pride, the students and their faculty allies are not working together in any formal way, according to Astarita. “The letter was entirely our initiative,” he said.

The four faculty members, as well as 11 other members of the LGBT faculty, sent an e-mail to DeGioia on Oct. 5 requesting his attendance at an open forum to discuss these issues on Oct. 10. DeGioia declined to take part in the public forum, but met privately with four members of GU Pride on Oct. 9.