Collection Scope and Content Note

Planning documents, correspondence, publicity, and news coverage of Veronica Berrill's libel lawsuit against Kathleen and Neal Houde related to Veronica Berrill's advocacy in 1995 of the gay "Safe Zones" program at Brookfield High School in Brookfield, Connecticut, where she taught. Includes a suggested mission statement for and press release from the Committee for the Defense of Classroom Tolerance, which was founded to provide moral and financial support to Veronica Berrill, and a copy of the Houdes' 1999 statement of revocation.

Plus a selection of brochures, leaflets, and news clippings about AIDS and gay issues from the late 1970s and early 1980s, collected by her son K. Berrill, including a 1979 interview with Dr. C.A. Tripp, "An Open Letter to CBS Television..." from Homosexuals Intransigent!, a flyer explaining the protest of two movies portraying gay men and lesbians, "Cruising" and "Windows," 1981 Wall Street Journal stories on "mysterious ailment" plaguing drug users and homosexual males, a May 11, 1982 New York Times story "New Homosexual Disorder Worries Health Officials," Michael Denneny's "Gay Manifesto for the 80's" from a 1981 Christopher Street magazine, and Jan Fowler's 1981 analysis of the Family Protection Act.