With 
National 
Coming 
Out Day just over a week 
away, 
the 
Ross 
School 
of 
Business’s 
LGBTQ 
organization, 
Out 
for 
Business, hosted OUTx on 
Tuesday evening as part of 
Ross Coming Out Week. OFB 
sponsors Ross Coming Out 
Week annually, featuring 
events 
highlighting 
and 
supporting 
the 
LGBTQ 
community 
within 
the 
Business School. Michigan 
Business Women and the 
MBA Council cosponsored 
the TEDx-style event.
Business 
graduate 
students 
James 
Lee 
and Laura Malecky, the 
co-presidents 
of 
OFB, 
began 
the 
event 
with 
introductions. 
Malecky 

said she wanted the event 
to bring together LGBTQ 
individuals and allies to 
normalize 
conversations 
about coming out and help 
promote LGBTQ culture.
“The goal of today’s event 
was for people to share their 
stories to help others better 
understand 
beyond 
the 
label of LGBTQ, and to help 
build solidarity and build 
inclusive 
communities,” 
Malecky 
said. 
“And 
obviously this is the first 
step.”
The 
keynote 
speaker, 
Nathan Manske, discussed 
I’m From Driftwood, the 
non-profit he founded based 
on his experiences growing 
up as a queer individual in a 
small Texas town. 
I’m From Driftwood, now 
in its 10th year, is an online 
archive of stories from the 

LGBTQ community and its 
allies. The website features 
both 
written 
accounts 
and video stories, some of 
which Manske highlighted 
during the event. Manske 
attributed the name of his 
non-profit to Harvey Milk’s 
sign featured in the 1978 San 
Francisco Gay Pride Parade. 
Manske said he wants I’m 
From Driftwood to serve 
as a reminder to LGBTQ 
individuals 
everywhere 
they are not alone.
“One 
remarkable 
characteristic 
of 
spoken 
stories is that they actually 
synchronize the brains of 
the speaker and listener,” 
Manske said. 
Manske also spoke about 
I’m From Driftwood’s 50 
State Story tour, during 
which he traveled to all 50 
states to collect stories from 
LGBTQ people. Manske 
believes the importance 
of I’m From Driftwood 
lies in the essence of 
the shared community 
that’s created through 
the telling and sharing 
of stories. 
Following 
Manske’s 
presentation, 
three 
speakers 
took 
the 
stage 
to 
share 
their 
coming 
out 
stories. 
Each 
story 
received 
a 
standing 
ovation 
from the audience of 
around 
150 
students, 
faculty 
members 
and 
local 
community 
members. These stories 
highlighted the diverse 
experiences of coming 
out as LGBTQ as well 
as the importance of 
having a network of 
support both during and 
after the coming out 
process.
Business 
graduate 
student Georgia Cassady 
told The Daily after the 
event that she came to 
OUTx as an ally of the 

LGBTQ 
community 
and 
hoped to better understand 
some 
of 
the 
challenges 
LGBTQ 
individuals 
face 
when they decide to come 
out. 
“(It was great) to hear 
about the different ways 
that people came to terms 
with who they are, how 
they figured it out and 
then the different tactics 
and strategies they had for 
actually deciding it was 
time to come out and who to 
come out to,” Cassady said.
Much of the discussion 
during the panel focused on 
the importance of breaking 
down labels in order to make 
the Michigan community 
and society at large more 
inclusive. Steven Feder, vice 
president of events for OFB, 
also 
pointed 
to 
LGBTQ 
resources on the University 
of Michigan’s campus, such 
as the Spectrum Center, 
which seeks to promote a 
diverse, collaborative space 
on campus. 
Feder told The Daily he 
wanted Ross Coming Out 
Week to include more events, 
such as conversation-based 
events like OUTx. Feder 
added that events focusing 
on sharing stories are a 
better way to bring together 
the LGBTQ community and 
its allies, especially within 
the business world.
“I think that the people 
in this room will be future 
CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, heads 
of non-profits,” Feder said. 
“And for them to have a 
better 
understanding 
of 
the emotional intensities 
(of coming out) and what 
you deal with as a member 
of the LGBT community, I 
think that will make them 
better leaders.”

COLLECTING FOU ND PHOTOGR APHS

2A — Wednesday, October 2, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News

CLAIRE MEINGAST/Daily
Photographs hanging in the interactive exhibit “Take Your Pick: Collecting Found Photographs” located in University of Michigan’s Museum of Art.

TUESDAY:
By Design 
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk
FRIDAY:
Behind the Story

MONDAY:
Looking at the Numbers

WEDNESDAY:
This Week in History 

ERIN GRANT
Daily Staff Reporter

Non-profit founder Nathan Manske gives keynote address, discusses personal experience

Ross’s Out for Business hosts talk focusing 
on support for members of LGBTQ community

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Gay rights advocates question ROTC ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ 

October 1, 1993
Big changes could be in store for 
campus attitudes and policies this 
fall, in ROTC as well as
gay activist circles, as students 
face the first academic year under 
President Clinton’s “don’t
ask, don’t tell” military policy.
As a branch of the U.S. military, 
ROTC, which is responsible for 
recruiting more than 70 percent
of today’s military personnel, is 
subjected to the new rule affecting 
the armed forces. Under the new 
policy, students are no longer 
required to sign a form stating they 
are heterosexual in order to join 
ROTC. However, as in the military, 
the ban against homosexual activity 
is still in effect, and “if someone 

is engaged in direct homosexual 
type of activity, that actually could 
result in their being removed from 
the service,” said Robert Shepherd, 
the public affairs officer for the U.S. 
Army ROTC Cadet Command.
Clinton’s policy - a compromise 
of his original campaign promise 
- is affecting ROTCs on college 
campuses nationwide for the first 
time, and gay rights groups are 
not satisfied. The American Civil 
Liberties Union (ACLU) is unhappy 
with the policy’s implications for 
ROTC, and it is prepared to fight.
National ACLU spokesperson 
Alexander Robinson contends that 
ROTC should be removed from 
campuses because it violates many 
universities’ 
non-discrimination 

policies. The nationalACLU is 
currently involved in a legal battle 
supporting 
several 
plaintiffs 
against the “don’t ask, don’t tell” 
policy, citing the equal protection 
provision, First Amendment and 
right to free association under the 
Constitution.
The question of discrimination 
in ROTC is not a new one. A 
national 
debate 
escalated 
on 
campuses about five years ago, 
when 
student 
demonstrators 
called for the ban of ROTC based 
on discrimination against gays 
and lesbians. Several institutions, 
including 
Harvard 
University, 
Colby 
College 
and 
Rutgers 
University, abandoned their ROTC 
programs altogether. Bonnie Nix, 

president of the University ACLU, 
is hesitant about calling for any 
drastic action.
“I really think that at this point 
we need some kind of small, slow, 
incremental-type change,” she said.
Local gay rights activists plan 
to focus on changing policies 
within the ROTC system, rather 
than banning the program. But 
neither the University Lesbian Gay 
Male Bisexual Program nor the 
University ACLU have immediate 
plans to challenge the policy.
Nix said she is opposed to 
Clinton’s policy, and said University 
policy that forbids discrimiation 
on the basis of sexual orientation 
“brings into question a lot of what 
ROTC is doing.”

University regent’s Bylaw 14.06 
-- a non-discrimination policy -- 
was amended at last Friday’s Board 
of Regents meeting to prohibit 
discrimination based on sexual 
orientation.
LSA senior Chad Beyer, an active 
member of Queer Action, said he 
is against ROTC’s presence on 
campus because “gays and lesbians 
share this community with them 
and they have an explicit rule that 
the discriminate against us.”
“I really think that if the 
University wants to prove that it is 
committed to fostering diversity, 
that it really has to hold the 
ROTC accountable to the same 
standards… that gays and lesbians 
are not discriminated against on 

this campus.
David 
Schwartz, 
a 
campus 
ACLU officer, asked, “Is the ‘don’t 
ask, don’t tell’ policy a policy against 
discrimination on the basis of 
sexual orientation? I think it is. But 
I don’t know what the University is 
going to be able to do about it.”
But University ROTC students 
said they are satisfied with the 
policy.
“If it doesn’t compromise what 
we’re trying to do here in the ROTC 
program, then I’m all for it. If (gay 
recruits) do what they’re supposed 
to do and do it right, and do it with 
honor and they work hard, I have 
no problem wuth it at all,” said a 
Navy ROTC member, who spoke on 
the condition of anonymity.

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