Arnie Kantrowitz, a literature professor and author who was an early champion of gay rights and a campaigner for fairer treatment of gay people by the media, died Jan. 21 at a rehabilitation center in Manhattan. He was 81.

In 1970, Mr. Kantrowitz became vice president of the Gay Activist’s Alliance. In 1985, he was a founding member of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLADD).

When he was teaching, gay students would share questions with him about their sexuality —cautiously, he said, but with a candor he had never felt comfortable with when he was a college student.