Rice student’s scholarship earns him a brush with celebrity

On point
Rice student’s scholarship earns him a brush with celebrity

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News staff

What began as a Google search resulted in the opportunities of a lifetime for Rice University senior Tyler Dillard, who earlier this month was flown to New York to present a Point Courage Award to “Sex and the City” TV star Cynthia Nixon. The award recognizes an individual who has selflessly advocated for the future of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

Dillard, a Point Scholar, was selected to present the award because of a series of essays he wrote recounting his experience coming out of the closet and the rejection and persecution that followed. Upon revealing he was gay, Dillard, an 18-year-old student at the time, was kicked out of his house and lost all emotional and financial support.

COURTESY PHOTO

Rice University senior Tyler Dillard, left, was flown to New York to present a Point Courage Award to “Sex and the City” star Cynthia Nixon.

“I didn’t let the renunciation from my family destroy my life,” Dillard said. “I explored other opportunities. I literally Googled ‘gay scholarship’ and found the Point Foundation Scholarship. Without it I would have been unable to attend Rice University — a place that has changed my life.”

The Point Foundation is the nation’s largest scholarship-granting organization for LGBT students of merit. Point provides financial support, leadership training, mentoring and hope to LGBT individuals who are marginalized because of their sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

Dillard said Nixon had thought being gay at a Texas university would be especially difficult. He was happy to inform her that her preconceptions were inaccurate.

“I feel so accepted at Rice,” Dillard said. “Everyone I’ve encountered has been so supportive and encouraging. I haven’t faced the persecution I did in the Deep South.”

In his award presentation speech April 7, Dillard talked a little bit about himself, but focused on the impact Nixon has had on him and others.

“Before Cynthia Nixon, I never really had a gay role model,” Dillard said. “When she came out, it was a source of inspiration. It encouraged me to rethink the way I was living my life. Following her example, I now live my life with integrity and without shame.”

Dillard had a chance to get to know Nixon more personally over a brunch before the awards ceremony.

“She told me what it was like to come out in the midst of national media attention,” Dillard said. “And I told her what it was like to come out in the Deep South.”

Advocacy, activism and achievement

Dillard was born in a small, conservative town in southern Alabama to teenage parents. His grandparents adopted him and sent him to a Christian school where homophobia was encouraged. He graduated valedictorian of his class and received a scholarship to Samford University, a Southern Baptist institution in Birmingham, Ala.

Despite the personal turmoil that ensued when he came out at Samford — his family disowned him, classmates harassed him, friends rejected him — Dillard won numerous academic, musical and leadership awards. He served as vice president of the political union, vice president of his fraternity, president of the academic honor society Alpha Lambda Delta and president of his class. Through his influence in student government, he advocated for the removal of a university policy that defined homosexual acts as ”sexual misconduct” and successfully organized and executed the first World AIDS Awareness Day and National Day of Silence on campus.

Dillard’s advocacy, activism and achievement have extended throughout his time at Rice. Recently, Dillard was one of only 12 students across the country to receive the 2008 George J. Mitchell Scholarship. The scholarship will enable him to travel in Ireland in August to pursue his master’s in human rights law at Queen’s University in Belfast.

He also organized the recent visit by Judy Shepard to campus. Shepard has become a nationally recognized human rights activist since the murder of her son, Matthew, a Wyoming student who was fatally attacked for being gay. About 100 students attended the event, which Dillard described as “powerful.”

“Hearing her talk just makes me more motivated to advocate for the disenfranchised,” Dillard said.

A political science major, Dillard serves as the vice president of Lovett College and the vice president for Queers and Allies, the LGBT activist group on campus. Last year he landed a Leadership Rice internship with the United Nations: World Food Programme, for which he drafted key portions of a $1 million grant proposal to the U.S. Agency for International Development and managed a highly detailed, $3.9 million grant proposal to the U.S. Department of Labor.

After using his Mitchell Scholarship to earn his master’s in Ireland, Dillard plans to return to the U.S. to attend law school.