Lgbtq mit
The College Fix
‘The point they seem to be making was that they should not have the right to say it’
Massachusetts Institute of Technology students behind flyers and chalkings recently found at the academy that included slurs against LGBTQ people were protesting the university’s emerging policies in support of free speech.
The incident came in the wake of a two-month-old MIT faculty resolution that defends freedom of speech and expression — even speech some locate “offensive or injurious.”
A Feb. 23 memo from MIT administrators stated flyers posted across campus and some chalking outside a academy entrance “contained slurs directly targeting the LBGTQ+ community.”
MIT’s bias response team investigated, the memo added, and determined “the messages were put up by students choosing to use highest speech to call attention to and protest what they see as the implications of” several modern pro-free speech policies and efforts at the school.
“The chalking and flyers that carried slurs were place up as part of a much larger establish of flyers, expressing a wide range of views, many framed in provocative terms. We have been told that t
The College Fix
Student leader said he did it to show MIT administration ‘the tax they impose on marginalized communities’
Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s student government president has been removed from his position and faces a recall election due to his role in perpetrating two campus hate-crime hoaxes hanging posters and chalking slurs against LGBTQ people, Latinos and other “marginalized communities.”
Undergraduate Association President David Spicer helped suspend the offensive posters and chalk the quad once in February and then again in mid-April during Campus Preview Weekend, infuriating his peers — even progressive ones who once championed him as a leader in campus diversity and inclusion.
Spicer has publicly admitted to — and defended — his role in the effort, arguing he did it to protest the university’s newly implemented wide-ranging policies in support of free speech.
“My decision to participate in the postering campaign was not one made lightly. I decided to participate in the effort because I wanted, and still want, an MIT that supports students on the margin,” Spicer wrote in an April 27 op-ed
Author of Queeristan spreads vision of inclusion
The dot-com bubble had recently burst, and Shahani found his own haven at MIT. “I was drawn to the intensity, the excitement, and the truth that it was a humanities program in the middle of a technology institute,” he says, laughing. “Plus, everyone was so weird! And I’ve always considered myself to be weird.”
He’s also fearless: Long before MIT, he landed his first job—at the Bombay Times—by knocking on an editor’s door and delivering a scathing critique. (“Security was lax in those days,” he jokes.) Shahani was promptly offered oversight of the youth section, which led to his work with Fresh Lime Soda.
At MIT, he worked to amplify marginalized voices. Upon arrival, he organized “Between the Lines: Negotiating South Asian LGBT Identity,” a first-of-its-kind film festival and symposium. “I had no idea how to go about it. I was asked, ‘Isn’t it a bit ambitious to plan a huge South Asian Film Festival the month that you got here?’” he recalls. He made his case, and MIT officials gave him support and funding—providing a lesson in empowerment that has stuck with him.
After graduation, he became vice president of the consumer-goods
Harvard Gender and Sexuality Caucus: Faculty/Staff
Faculty/Staff
All Harvard faculty and staff are welcome to join the Harvard Gender & Sexuality Caucus. Benefits of membership include access to the online membership database and participation in Harvard's large BGLTQ collective. HGSC has thousands of members. You can also sign up for a variety of email lists that will keep you posted on the latest events and activities of the caucus, especially comparable to campus activism.
Within the Harvard BGLTQ community, several hundred BGLTQ faculty and staff from all the Harvard schools are members of HGSC.
You can grow a member by applying online at:
https://hgsc.sigs.harvard.edu/memsub.html
Over the past two decades, there have been a variety of BGLTQ-related faculty and staff groups. Currently there are three that focus on organizing BGLTQ faculty and staff and helping them feel easy in the workplace. These are great places to talk about coming out and any other issues of interest to the LGBT community .
Current BGLTQ Networking/Support GroupsHarvard-Wide LGBT Faculty/Staff Group
The LGBT Faculty and Staff Group seeks to provide a common voice for
Pilot 2021 threatens the LGBTQ community at MIT
Opinionletter to the editor
Three presidents of MIT’s LGBTQ organizations respond to Pilot 2021
By Abraham Bauer, Anna Kazlauskas, and Szabolcs KissJun. 29, 2017
As the presidents of MIT’s three undergraduate LGBTQ organizations, we feel compelled to advocate against the dispersion of one of MIT’s largest LGBTQ communities and the destruction of one of its vibrant queer-affirming spaces that has existed for decades in Senior House.
Removing the majority of current residents from Senior House eliminates one of the few visibly gender non-conforming spaces on campus.Senior House has historically been home to many LGBTQ students, and over 40% of current Senior House residents recognize as LGBTQ, according to the Chancellor’s office. Eradicating such a living group is not only a tragic deficit to current Senior House residents. It is harmful to LGBTQ-identifying students across campus for whom the existence of such spaces indicates safety. It hurts those who chose MIT, as MIT has historically hosted multiple vibrant and openly queer communities. And it threatens that which makes MIT unique and successful: a campus that not only tolerates, but cele