By Berl Schwartz

When David Kimball boards a plane to California and semi-retirement today, he will leave Lansing a happier man than when he arrived.
Happier by far.

Kimball was the chief administrative aide to John DiBiaggio, president of Michigan State University, for a year until Kimball was arrested and charged with gross indecency with another male in 1986. When DiBiaggio was named president, Kimball was the one assistant he brought with him from the University of Connecticut.

Despite their close professional and personal relationship, Kimball said DiBiaggio didn’t know Kimball was gay. "I wasn’t out to anybody," Kimball said, including wife and parents.

"I wasn’t out to myself. I was an ambitious, industrious person who wanted to succeed and be happy. I paid close attention to what the dominant culture said."
The dominant culture said stay in the closet, which meant being just the opposite of what he wanted to be: happy with himself."

That began to change on March 18, 1986. Kimball was in San Diego on university business when he learned by phone that a warrant had been issued for his arrest in a roundup of 42 men. Police had used a special videotape camera to capture their activities at a rest area on U.S. 127 near Holt.

"The events are fuzzy," Kimball said in an interview in his home on West Kalamazoo Street in Lansing. "There’s the blur that trauma produces."

He learned from his lawyer that the video showed him groping another man for 37 seconds under the divider between each other’s stalls. Until then, he said, he had lived at the "pinnacle of privilege" as a member of the "straight white male club.."

"I found myself being treated differently. It was a real education to me. I was treated like a woman – less eye contact, more interruptions (when he spoke), dismissive references. That was a huge revelation."

Kimball fought the charges. The question of privacy ended up in the state Supreme Court. "I believe what the State Police did at the rest stop was wrong and illegal," he said. "There was no public lewdness. The assumption of privacy (in a bathroom stall) is reasonable."

The Supreme Court did not agree. In 1992, Kimball pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense of indecent exposure and was placed on probation. (In the same year Kimball was arrested, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a state has the right to outlaw sex between consenting members of the same sex in the privacy of a bedroom – a ruling that still stands.)

Between the arrest and the disposition, Kimball changed his life. He and his wife, Barbara, ended a 20-year marriage. He began a relationship with a man that has lasted 12 years. And he came out to himself and others.

After the arrest, Kimball, who was executive assistant to DiBiaggio and had recently been named secretary of the MSU Board of Trustees, was farmed out to a spot in the College of Agriculture. After a year, DiBiaggio cut him loose. "I have nothing to say against John DiBiaggio," Kimball said. "He’s a wonderful person. He was in a very difficult position politically."

For 10 years, he worked for Public Sector Consultants. Meanwhile, he became a Realtor, which for the last three years has been his full-time career, and which he will continue in Palm Desert.

During the early days after his arrest, he thought about leaving Lansing. He said he is frequently asked why he didn’t, considering he had no roots here.

"I was blessed with some really marvelous friends who said the only way out of this was through it. I was on probation for four or five years. You’re constantly reminded of your status, but you’re also reminded that you’re at a really important time of your life. If I had left, I’d have been looking over my shoulder. There I’d be all over again. I wouldn’t really be out," he said.

"I’d bump into people who would say, ‘David Kimball – aren’t you the one …’ I’d feel the color rising in my face, till I finally was able to say, ‘Yeah, you’re right – I used to be at MSU.’"

Kimball said he knows now that what he went through was painful but necessary. "Finally, it’s all about being comfortable with ourselves."