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 SPOOKY SZN puzzle by sudokusyndication.com 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. The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. 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