Q. Are there guidelines for how students and administrators should respond when they receive anti-gay/lesbian death threats? What about threats made to the LGBT office?

A. It is likely that one's institution has protocols in place for dealing with work place/campus threats. Consult with your campus police and other planning authorities for advice. In addition, there often is a crisis response team already designated. There may, in fact, be several such teams -- perhaps in counseling, residence life, campus police, student affairs administration, and so on.

On most campuses, students and administrators who receive death threats or other threats of violence are strongly urged to contact the University Police -- as well as the police department in their community (if they live off-campus as many students do). If the college or university has a security office rather than a campus police department, it is critical that the local police department be called in to assist on-campus residents. Is there a campus or community anti-violence project which provides victim assistance (perhaps there is someone like that on a campus crisis response team)? Are these projects inclusive of LGBT issues or do they specialize in working with LGBT populations? If so, the victim might be encouraged to call them before contacting the police. In many of agencies, one of the staff will go to the police station with the victim to help get the report filed (or sit with the victim if the police come to interview him or her) and to see that the police respond to the complaint.

The campus police usually can give the student or administrator good ideas on how to protect him or herself while at the university and help him/her assess the level of risk.

Is there an Ombudsperson office for the campus? If so, often an Ombudsperson can do things such as get the a parking assignment changed so that the person who received the threat can park in a different lot. The Ombudsperson can also get the victim's email address hidden (usually temporarily) in the on-line directory and flag the person's electronic records so that information is not shared to anyone off-campus. Of course, if the threat comes from on-campus, this may be less helpful. The Ombudsperson can also contact faculty if a student needs to be absent from class for a few days due to the nature of the threat and help to negotiate how to make up missed work/exams. On most campuses, staff in the Counseling Center are prepared to work with students who have had death threats (or other kinds of serious threats -- e.g., from stalkers) to make sure they get the emotional support that they need.

If the threat comes via email, the campus computer center can work with the police to track down the sender (most computer centers have staff skilled at finding out the identities of people who tried to send anonymous threats from their email accounts).

Individuals are encouraged to document threats made to them. Documentation can take many forms. It can be a personal accounting system such as a journal, which the individual may report immediately or save for later use. Documentation can mean reporting to campus or community police and/or to an anti-violence project. If allegations of code of student conduct violations are made against students, the campus judicial affairs unit will become involved. (Individuals found in violation have been banned from campuses in several cases.) Counseling is available for those who have been affected and want support.

LGBT offices often hear complaints of stalking, and can provide students with information about stalking and means of dealing with threatening situations. In addition, on many campuses, police will shadow a community member who is being stalked on campus to provide security in cases where violence is a strong possibility.

Unfortunately, despite all these efforts, it is clear that we can't absolutely guarantee safety. The hope is that the student or administrator/faculty can take informed risks after working with these people. Intimidation and threats of violence are surely meant to scare us into invisibility, and only the individual most directly affected can determine how to respond to such threats. Most people who regularly receive death threats keep track of them, report them, and live their lives as they always have, knowing there is a possibility that sometime they may pay a price.

A campus LGBT office should have a specific plan for threats that come into the office. For example, instance, when a threat comes into an office, who ever receives the threat should immediately place a 911 call to the campus police, alert the building coordinator, and contact the director of the office. Threats are documented, and the police will give advice on the best response for a particular situation -- perhaps even evacuating and closing the floor where the office is housed for the remainder of a work day (with notice to staff members in other portions of the building to be on alert for the rest of the day.) Visitors to the office might not be allowed to move beyond the reception area without being escorted by the staff members they are visiting. Some offices keep a register of incoming calls and utilize caller ID to ease tracking of phone harassment and threatening calls. It is also possible to request a "trap" on phone lines which records the phone numbers of all incoming calls and the time that they were received. This record is accessed by the police and this procedure is usually undertaken only after serious threats.

All staff members should be trained in emergency procedures. Other units that share the floor in the came building should be alerted to signals that will be sent should help be needed by Office staff. In addition, it can be helpful to get staff training on using techniques to de-escalate contentious situations.

For example at Ohio State, they take every threat seriously, but at the same time, they follow a feminist philosophy, which dictates that they do not give time or attention to harassers. They claim their power and use it to be a presence their campus.

Finally, consider importing or developing a self-defense course that is specifically designed for GLBT community members. These courses are often based on a feminist empowerment model, but can be grounded in a GLBT cultural perspective. Such a course teaches participants a range of self-defense and confrontation skills, only some of which require any use of physical hitting or kicking skills. The focus is on how to remain physically and emotionally safe and how to make yourself less of a target without compromising queer visibility. Local or campus sexual assault or violence prevention programs can often provide assistance with self-defense courses.

This information is a distillation of recommendations by Willa Young, Director of Student Gender and Sexuality Services at the Ohio State University and David Barnett , Director of the Office of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns at of the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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