In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, the Canadian government hired Carleton University professor Frank Robert Wake to devise a scientific test to determine whether a person was gay.

The prevailing view at the time was that homosexuals suffered from a character weakness that could make them disloyal and easy to manipulate. In the United States, which was in the grips of McCarthyism, homosexuals were often seen as communist sympathizers.

The Canadian government ultimately compiled a list of people alleged, suspected or confirmed to be gay.

But all that surveillance was costly and time-consuming, so the government needed Wake, who was the chair of Carleton’s psychology department, to come up with an easier method for determining a person’s sexual orientation.

What he devised came to be known as the “fruit machine.” There wasn’t an actual machine though, just a collection of psychological tests, including one designed to detect how a subject’s pupil responds to images of naked or semi-naked men and women.

It never worked, and the project was eventually abandoned. But its existence was emblematic of the discrimination gays and lesbians faced, including hundreds who were fired or demoted from positions in the military or civil service.

Now, more than half a century later, some Carleton students want the school to acknowledge its role in this dark chapter of Canada’s history and issue a public apology for what Wake did. The students also want the university to erect a small monument on the campus so people will learn about and discuss what happened back then.

“You shouldn’t be able to hide bad things that happened in the past and forget about them because that just sets a precedent for being able to do terrible things now and have this expectation that later on, if it comes out, no one will care anymore,” said Skyler Gubbels, a fourth-year criminology student.

Gubbels learned about the fruit machine’s existence in a law class, but continued working with fellow students Farzana Bashar and Helen Zan on a campaign to convince the university to take action.

“This is not a smear campaign,” Zan said. “We just want there to be an acknowledgement.”

Kinsman’s 2010 book The Canadian War of Queers, which he co-wrote with Carleton professor Patrizia Gentile, has a chapter on Wake’s fruit-machine research.

“There was a concerted, organized, orchestrated campaign against homosexuals and the fruit machine was just one aspect of that,” Gentile said.

“It’s pretty extraordinary they felt such desperation that they would go to these lengths, which in the end was just quackery.”

Gentile provided the Carleton students with government documents she and Kinsman obtained through a freedom-of-information request and says she’s “delighted” by their efforts.

“Their disbelief that one of the professors at this university would have had anything to do with the fruit machine is a testament to how, in our context, the idea that homosexuals would have this kind of persecution is unthinkable,” she said.

Whether the university will take action remains to be seen.

Roseann Runte, Carleton’s president, said Friday that she’s looking into it.

The university’s records don’t indicate Wake ever conducted research for the federal government. He may have done so while on sabbatical but Runte says there’s no mention of such work in the sabbatical report he filed.

Runte said it’s good, in general, to acknowledge the errors of the past.

“However, the question is, if that had no relationship to Carleton, is Carleton the right body to apologize or should it be the government?”



Mathew Pearson