VCU Gay Alliance of Students collection

The Gay Alliance of Students (GAS) was founded as a student organization on September 1, 1974, at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond Virginia. 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."

GAS was denied recognition as a student organization by the VCU Board of Visitors on October 17, 1974 on the grounds that the "existence of GAS as a recognized campus organization would tend to attract other homosexuals to the University." In October 1976, a civil case was brought to the U.S. District Court of Appeals Fourth District Circuit Court against VCU to allow for full funding and space allocations. The Federal Appeals Court ruled in favor of the student organization effectively changed existing law in ten southern states.

By the 1980s, the Gay Alliance of Students was known as the VCU Gay Student Alliance. As of 2010, there were two gay student organizations at VCU-the Sexual Minority Student Alliance and Queer Action.