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4B3 1 -he.Staement //Wednesda- Decembr 8,-201
Wednesday, December 8, 2010 // The Statement m
W hen Michigan Student Assembly Pres-
ident Chris Armstrong first applied to
college, he had visions of becoming a
video game engineer. His college essay was about
the artistic merits of his favorite video game, and
he only applied to colleges with excellent video
game design programs.
But when this self-proclaimed nerd eventually
came to the University of Michigan, he decided
to take a different path. Armstrong immediately
joined the University's LGBT commission when
he arrived on campus. He later became chair of
the commission, and then ran for MSA president
last spring.
Armstrong's term as MSA president is half-
way over, but his presidency has already received
more publicity than most who serve in col-
lege student governments. Last fall, Armstrong
gained national attention for the attacks he
received from now former Michigan Assistant
Attorney General Andrew Shirvell. The incident
has been front and center in Armstrong's presi-
dency, but he hopes to change that in the four
months he has left.
Armstrong joined MSA as a freshman and
quickly rose through the assembly ranks asa rep-
resentative on the assembly's LGBT Commission.
"I immediately wanted to get involved with
LGBT groups on campus because I wanted to
meet other gay people," Armstrong said last week
in the offices of The Michigan Daily.
Armstrong made a lot of progress on the
commission. He helped plan a launch event for
National Coming Out Week in fall 2009 and was
integral in helping the University become the
host of the 2011 Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay,
Transgender, Ally College Conference.
"I started getting involved and it just sort of
spiraled and spiraled," he said.
That same year, Armstrong met Jason Ray-
mond, a fellow MSA representative, and the two
becamegood friends. Two-and-a-halfyears later,
the pair decided to run for office together.
Both were interested in the top position, but
it was ultimately decided that Armstrong would
run for the presidential spot. Raymond explained
that putting Armstrong in that position was
viewed as an excellent opportunity to represent
his issues and break down a lot of barriers within
MSA, since Armstrong would be the first openly
gay MSA president at the University.
"We're very much a team and we didn't really
care about the titles," Raymond said, "but we
decided it would be a great victory for Chris's
community for him to be MSA president."
Freshman year, Armstrong and Raymond also
met Alex Serwer, who helped build their cam-
paign when they decided to run. Once elected,
Armstrong appointed Serwer his chief of staff.
Like Raymond, Serwer said putting Armstrong
in such a distinguished position sent a powerful
message.
"It's a big moment for LGBT individuals."
Serwer said. "Seeing another (LGBT) student in
such a prominent position is a really big deal for
that incoming freshman that doesn't really know
what the LGBT community is like on campus," he
said.
Armstrong and Raymond ran with the orga-
nization MForward - a party that stands on the
platform of representing a diverse group of stu-
dents on the assembly, which they founded.
MForward viewed Armstrong's future legacy
as the firstopenly gay MSA president as an impor-
tant milestone, and the party's platform focused
on LGBT issues. However, the party didn't try to
like a swastika on top of a gay pride flag. On
another picture, he wrote "racist, elitist liar"
across Armstrong's face..
Shirvell first approached Armstrong at a coun-
ter rally to a protest hosted by the West Borough
Baptist church over a production of "The Lara-
mie Project" in May 2010. Armstrong was speak-
ing at the event in defense of the production, and
said he had never once spoken to Shirvell prior
"Knowing the background I had and knowing I wasn't
going to be closeted ... I wasn't surprised (by the blog)
because I was waiting for it."
use Armstrong's personal story to their advan-
tage, and the issue of his sexuality wasn'tbrought
up by either party during the election.
"We always had the same issues that we want-
ed to work on, and that was never something that
we had to make special arrangements for or con-
sider in a different light," Raymond said.
Serwer emphasized that the platform of
the campaign was built around issues, and not
Chris's personal decisions.
"We made sure that whatever we were preach-
ing to the students as they were voting was what
we stood for, rather than Chris's sexual orienta-
tion," Serwer said.
Armstrong grew up in a small town in Con-
necticut with a population of about 25,000.
While he came out to his parents when he was
15 years old, he had only told a couple of close
friends in his hometown, and was not openly gay
until he came to the University. Armstrong said
hiding that secret in high school made him want
to do things differently when he went to college.
"My goal when I came to the University of
Michigan was to live openly, to be out and to
really see how my life could be being myself,"
Armstrong said.
While he was not ashamed of his sexuality, he
said he always knew running as an openly gay
man would create obstacles. He explained that a
lot of insecurities about how he was dressing and
acting surfaced when he assumed the presidency.
"To a certain extent, I've had to try to project
more of a sense of authority just because there's
always that sense people won't take you serious-
ly," Armstrong said. "I think those insecurities
are universal, but when it comes from a minor-
ity or a minority group sometimes it's more aug-
mented."
The obstacles Armstrong predicted were
particularly challenging to overcome last April,
when Shirvell, a University alum, began harass-
ing Armstrong and his friends and family.
Shirvell launched Chris Armstrong Watch - a
blog Shirvell ran in order to monitor Armstrong
and to accuse him of promoting a "radical homo-
sexual agenda" on campus.
Shirvell posted pictures of Armstrong on the
blog and drew offensive symbols over his face,
to the rally.
As news of Shirvell's blog began spreading
across campus and the nation, Armstrong tried
to abstain from reading it and to remain unaf-
fected by it. But he "wasn't surprised" when he
found out about it.
"When I was running for president, knowing
the background I had and knowingI wasn't going
to be closeted - I was going to be out with who
I was - I wasn't surprised because I was waiting
for it," Armstrong said.
Armstrong said the accusations didn't concern
him until Shirvell began attacking his friends
and family.
"It was certainly upsetting the things he was
saying, but it hurt more when he would say things
about the people around me because to a certain
extent I signed up for this. I signed up to be criti-
cized," Armstrong said.
Armstrong remained publicly silent through
most of the Shirvell incident, refusing to dig-
nify the attacks with a response. And even when
Armstrong did finally speak out, it was not a
direct result of Shirvell's actions.
Armstrong spoke out on CNN's "Anderson
Cooper 360" - the first national media outlet to
report the incident - after multiple gay adoles-
cents committed suicide across the nation as a
result of bullying.
"The only reason he went on Anderson Cooper
was purely because during the week the Andrew
Shirvell incident blew up in the media there had
been a number of suicides across the nation with
teens that were criticized by their classmates
because they were gay or had been outed," Ray-
mond said.
Raymond said that no matter how hard
Shirvell pushed him, Armstrong maintained a
grounded perspective of the incident and refused
to allow the blogger to prevent him from doing
his job on the assembly.
"He could have engaged in a fight with this
guy," Raymond said. "He had many opportunities
to do so over national media outlets. But instead
Chris wanted to focus on the issues. He wanted
to focus on his work on the assembly."
Armstrong tried to serve as best he could dur-
ing the controversy, using the position he had
earned to push the improvements to campus he
thought most necessary. But the episode did dis-
-tract him from focusing entirely on MSA issues,
which he says was the most upsetting aspect of
the incident.
"I felt to a certain extent I was letting things
get to me and had trouble refocusing," Arm-
strong said.
Serwer also commented on the effects of the
distraction, noting that many members of the
assembly turned their attention away from the
MSA issues they had wanted to focus on in order
to deal with Shirvell's attacks. But he said the dis-
traction didn't detract from the assembly's over-
all goals.
"There were times when we were more
focused on the incident at hand than we were
with the latest MSA project and making sure
whatever it was got done in the absolute strictest
timeline," Serwer said. "But it didn't detract from
our goals to any insurmountable point."
In fact, many of the people that surround Arm-
strong on the assembly found the incident did the
exact opposite. Raymond said Shirvell's unjusti-
fied comments made the assembly want to pass
more legislation dealing with LGBT issues.
"If anything, (the incident) gave us a little
more fire when it comes to issues like open hous-
ing - issues that Andrew Shirvell targeted as a
part of Chris's 'gay militant homosexual agenda,'
" Raymond said. "I think it really empowered a
lot of people on the assembly and really made us
want to work harder."
In recent months, MSA has been focusing
their efforts on the issue of Open Housing which
would allow students to'choose to room in the
dorms with students of the opposite sex.
Vice President for Student Affairs E. Royster
Harper, who consults with Armstrong about
student issues on a weekly basis, said she was
impressed by his level of commitment to the
assembly in the height of Shirvell's attacks.
"Most of the time when I would meet with
Chris during that period he would say, 'I want
to focus on what we need to get done on MSA,'
" Harper said. "He would be the one that would
make it clear that we needed to have a conver-
sation related to MSA. And really, I'm not sure
many people could have done that."
But the rest of the student body wasn't able to
overlook the situation as easily. Students created
a Facebook group in support of Armstrong and
there were many pleas to the attorney general's
office to fire Shirvell for his actions. As of 8 p.m.
on December 7,19,469 people "like" the group on
Facebook and have posted messages of encour-
agement and support of Armstrong.
Despite Shirvell's bullying, Armstrong said
that, in certain ways, the student body's response
to the situation made it worth enduring.
"It was really difficult to deal with all that,
but I think at the end of it there have been so
many reaffirmations about what this campus is,
how we feel when someone outside our campus
attacks someone inside our campus and that
sense that we will respect each other no matter
See ARMSTRONG, Page 8B