Social contagion? Nearly 40% of Brown University students identify as LGBTQ+

Straight students may soon be able to claim minority status at Brown University if the trend continues.

A spring survey conducted by the Brown Daily Herald, the campus newspaper, found that 38% of students self-reported as LGBTQ+, almost tripling the 14% of respondents who said they were something other than heterosexual in the fall 2010 poll.

Both figures are still far higher than those in a Gallup poll of U.S. adults released in February, which found 7.2% identify as LGBT.