SAFE stands for Safe and Friendly Environment. The SAFE Place Project helps make Ferris a safer and friendlier place for lesbian, gay, and bisexual students by giving a visible sign in your office that you wish to be supportive.
You often will not know which students are in these groups. Most of them do not look or act different from other students. Displaying the SAFE Place logo will show the students you want everyone to be comfortable.
The SAFE Place logo was designed especially for gay, lesbian, and bisexual students. Many of these students will recognize the pink triangle, because it is often used as a symbol of gay liberation.
The pink triangle's origins are those of oppression. In the years prior to and during WWII, homosexuals were among the many groups targeted for extermination by the Nazis. Just as Jews were forced to wear yellow Stars of David, and political prisoners red triangles, so too were homosexual males identified by pink triangles. A quarter of a million died in places such as Dachau. Lesbians were probably there, also, but considered "social misfits" along with many others and identified by black triangles.
Often the liberation of the camps by the Allies did not include gay men or lesbians, who were treated as criminals and forced to serve out their sentences. Today the pink triangle has been transformed by many in the G/L/B movement into a symbol of remembrance, struggle, and pride.
This is a Safe Place, where all students can feel comfortable, whether they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or straight. Our purpose is to create an environment committed to diversity and mutual respect, where all students can feel SAFE in discussing issues that shape and individualize us, regardless of gender orientation, political perspective, or religious belief.