WACO-(September 1, 2011)--A former Baylor law professor is calling on the university to change it's policies on gays and lesbians, shining the national spotlight on a group of students he says even he overlooked while teaching at Baylor.

It's a topic that has university officials keeping silent and students on campus a buzz.

Mark Osler, an attorney known nationally as an advocate for civil liberties who taught at the Baylor University Law School for ten years, didn't even know their was a support group for gays at BU until he set foot on campus Thursday.

"When I was working at Baylor, I didn't think about who's gay," said Osler. "because it was something people just didn't talk about."

But after writing an article on bullying last October, Osler got some emails from former students that he says changed his way of thinking.

"(They) talked about how hard it was to be in a place where they profoundly felt like they didn't belong," said Osler.

Baylor's current policies on sexual misconduct condemn homosexuality and bar gays and lesbians from the faculty.

In a Huffington Post article posted Monday, Osler writes that now is the time to change those policies, for the benefit of the students.

"Their performance as a student suffered but more importantly, they were alienated by Baylor by this but they were alienated from their faith," said Osler.

It's the lack of discussion that current lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and trans-gender students at Baylor say affects them the most.

"The silence is really damaging," said Baylor sophomore Aaron R. Short, president of the Sexual Identity Forum, Baylor's unofficial student support group for LGBT students. "even though Baylor is not hostile to LGBT students it's really hurtful to be completely ignored."

Osler spoke tonight at the Sexual Identity Forum's first meeting of the year in hopes that his article and his presence will spark discussion and eventually change.

Osler is currently a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota.