A gay student at the Australian National University (ANU) was forced to leave his college home after enduring months of homophobic threats from an unknown perpetrator.

The ANU conceded it would be difficult to guarantee the safety of other LGBTI students at the university-owned Ursula Hall, since the perpetrator was never identified.

The first-year student began receiving abuse shortly after moving into the college at the beginning of last year, when the word "faggot" was scrawled repeatedly across his dormitory door.

The student approached the head of Ursula Hall, who wrote a letter to residents saying it was inappropriate and if the person was caught they would be kicked out.

"And then it kept happening," the student said.

"I'd go to the bathroom and someone would swipe letters under my door saying 'leave or I'll f***ing bash you'."

"[I was] fearful. Fearful of the fact that someone was threatening me. I don't know people's actions."

At first, the abusive messages were slipped under toilet stall doors. ( Supplied )

University response frustrates student

Over several months, the student received threatening letters under the door of his room.

He continued to raise it with the college, but was frustrated by their response.

The student was not so concerned by abusive words, more so by people threatening him directly. ( Supplied )

"The college's response was the same: release a letter, have a little chat at dinner, nothing really fundamental," he said.

"I don't really care if someone's calling me a fag — words are words — but when someone's putting out threats to me and my safety, especially at college ... make a more proactive initiative."

The student resorted to living at his then-boyfriend's place out of fear, eventually requesting to be moved from Ursula Hall in October, after attempts to identify the letter-writer failed.

"Coming here, I had an open mind. [I thought] it's going to be a great experience," he said.

"It wasn't what it lived up to … I'm paying to get attacked, and not live."

ANU can't have 'blanket confidence' it will not happen again

In a statement, the ANU said it was deeply saddened by the harassment at Ursula Hall.

"We offer an unreserved apology for any distress caused to the student as a result of the offensive behaviour of another student," it read.

"It is unacceptable to us that a student has felt victimised and harassed in their own home environment."

The university's provost could not guarantee other LGBTI students would not be harassed. ( Supplied )

The university's provost, Mike Carlford, added it would be difficult to assure other LGBTI students at Ursula Hall that they would not also be harassed.

"As we understand there hasn't been any further incidents, but it would be very hard for me to give a blanket confidence there, as the perpetrator was not identified," he said.

Mr Carlford said the university was reviewing its policies and procedures in light of the incident.

"This sort of event helps trigger our review of procedures and policies, as unfortunate as it is, and we do hope to get better in this area through doing that," he said.

"We do take this very seriously."

'Remove the perpetrator, not the victim'

The ANU student association's queer* officer, Matthew Mottola, said moving the victim was a problematic solution.

"I think that first of all finding out who is doing this would be the first priority, and to remove them from the situation, as opposed to having the victim be removed," Mr Mottola said.

The student expressed his frustration that he felt it was his responsibility to resolve the issue.

"I love this university, the university in itself I really enjoy ... I don't think [the incident] is reflective of the whole community. It's just the fact of the matter is the onus should be on the college to fix the issue," he said.

Mr Mottola said universities need to lead the culture change on campus.

"It often seems that it's just left up to students to change the culture and to do the work the university isn't doing," Mr Mottola said.

"The fact that such vile things are still happening within colleges is awful … It shows that the fight is still not over for queer people.

"Even in my job as queer* officer, once marriage equality was passed someone asked me if I still have a job — of course I have a job, there's so much more to be done."