GALA-ND/SMC News

GALA-ND/SMC supporting and sustaining members have elected a new leadership team for 2010-2012! Please join us in welcoming our new officers:

Chair: Liam Dacey '04
Vice Chair for Programs: Cody Lassen MBA'09
Vice Chair for Membership: Lance Gallop '04
Secretary: Tessa Sainz '03

The new officers will be transitioning responsibilities from the outgoing team during the month of February. Congratulations!

From the January 27 campus protest about the University's stance on gay rights.

Click on photo to view full gallery of nine photos:

Hundreds of demonstrators took part in a silent protest at Notre Dame. They want the University to break its silence on gay rights. The demonstration and march may have been silent, but it certainly was not without drama.

Read about the march here.

Students will be meeting with Father Jenkins on Friday.  We'll keep you posted on new developments. 

Members,

Please take a moment to sign the petition to add "sexual orientation" to Notre Dame's non discrimination clause.

Sign the petition here!

Dear Members,

We wanted to provide you with an update on the recent situation surrounding the publication of a cartoon in the Notre Dame Observer. As you may know, the January 13 issue of the Observer included a a cartoon which was at best, a very poor and misguided attempt at satire and shock, and at worst, hate speech that made light of violence against LGBT people. Regardless, the cartoon had no place in the Notre Dame newspaper. It simply does not meet community standards. The Associate Managing Editor responsible for approving materials on January 13 has resigned. The cartoon strip itself has been canceled.

We have spoken with the Editor-in-Chief of the Observer and believe that the publication was the result of a gross failure on the part of the editorial review process. The cartoon was not checked before publication. While inexcusable, we do not believe this represented active malice on the part of the editorial staff and have been assured that the Observer is modifying its procedures so that there is no chance of this occurring again. The cartoonists have also issued an apology. This apology, and a letter to GALA from the Observer, can be found at www.galandsmc.org along with GALA's original response submitted to the newspaper.

The response to the cartoon's publication has been swift and we are pleased that denunciation has come from so many on campus and off campus as well. We remain concerned however that the underlying issues that make it possible to believe that Notre Dame would condone anti-gay hate speech remains. The fact that the university's non-discrimination clause does not include sexual orientation and that the student group, OutreachND, is not formally recognized frame every debate surrounding LGBT issues on campus. We have requested a meeting with ND President Fr. Jenkins to address these issues and commit ourselves to doing what we can do as an alumni group to bring about real change. Our letter to Fr. Jenkins can also be found on the GALA website.

We recognize that there have been positive changes on campus, including the efforts of the Core Council to provide students with a safer and more welcoming campus environment. There are now outreach programs to raise awareness of LGBT issues with incoming freshmen, RAs and the athletic department. The Core Council has also sponsored a Day of Silence to protest the silence faced by gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons. Formally recognized groups like the Progressive Student Alliance are real allies in the effort to amend the non-discrimination clause. And before all of this occurred, GALA was invited to take part in the Business School's Diveristy weekend in early February, an invitation which we have accepted. This past year we also hosted a webinar for students in conjunction with the Career Center on being out on the job market. These invitations would not likely have come a few years ago.

But Notre Dame's position as the nation's most prominent Catholic university requires that we engage in an honest and open airing of the issues surrounding the publication of the cartoon. Law school students sponsored a series of speakers on LGBT issues this past fall. There is a tremendous opportunity here to do the same thing on a university-wide level addressing issues like the editorial review process and hate speech, the real meaning of Notre Dame's Spirit of Inclusion, the threat of violence against students on campus, what it means to be gay at a Catholic college, and balancing faith and sexuality. Students -- including Observer staff -- and faculty seem willing to risk the spotlight this will shine on ND. We hope the administration also realizes it has more to gain through strong leadership.

Other efforts are underway. A petition is once again being circulated to amend the non-discrimination clause to include sexual orientation. An editorial in support of this can be found in the January 22 issue of the Observer at www.ndsmcobserver.com. You will also find a report of the Student Senate's 25-0 vote on a resolution to support amending the non-discrimination clause. We encourage you as GALA members to add your voice by sharing your comments and concerns with Fr. Jenkins and the administration (http://president.nd.edu/). Letters may be submitted to the Observer at www.ndsmcobserver.com/letter-to-editor. And please let us know your thoughts and concerns as we continue to advocate for change on campus.


Tom O'Brien '86
Chair, GALA-ND/SMC
chair@galandsmc.org

Dear Father Jenkins,

We hope this note finds you well. As officers of the Gay and Lesbian Alumni/ae of Notre Dame and Saint Mary's College (GALA-ND/SMC), we have been staying on top of the response to The Observer comic so that we can keep our 900+ members across the country informed. Many have expressed hurt, anger, and despair that things are going in the wrong direction on campus. Our letter, which appeared in the January 18 edition of the Observer, took in to account many of their feelings as well as our own intentions regarding next steps to be taken.

We would like to commend you on your quick denunciation of this act, denouncing “the implication that violence or expressions of hate toward any person or group of people is acceptable or a matter that should be taken lightly.” GALA-ND/SMC agrees and recommends the following steps that we believe will address some of the underlying issues surrounding the cartoon’s publication and the response to it from so many, including our members.

First, we would like to meet with you in person. This would allow us to brainstorm future steps together and allow you to meet GALA-ND/SMC’s new leadership team. While previous officers of GALA-ND/SMC have had fruitful meetings with Fathers Malloy and Hesburgh, we have not yet had the chance to meet with you in the same capacity. A face-to-face meeting would send a clear message to our members and the campus community that we are actively working together on preventing hate speech from occurring again. We recognize that you have a busy schedule so we will do our best to make a trip to campus when it is convenient for you. We believe this to be too critical an issue to wait until our next planned visit.

Second, we recommend that a series of panel discussions take place throughout the Spring semester. These panels could include Observer staff, students, faculty, and alumni and would be centered around such topics as the editorial review process and hate speech, the threat of violence against students on campus, what it means to be gay at a Catholic college, and balancing faith and sexuality. Underlying many of these issues for our members is a concern that there is a relationship between the university’s non-discrimination clause, which does not include sexual orientation, the lack of formal recognition for the student group, and an unwillingness to see the LGBT community, including alumni, as part of the Notre Dame family.

Perhaps the Gender Relations Center could take the lead in organizing these discussions. GALA-ND/SMC would love to participate in these and could even try to find suitable speakers from our organization. The Law School students recently held a successful series that explored GLBT legal issues; this could be used as a good model going forward. Again, the panels would send a clear message to our members and campus that positive steps are being taken.

As you know, actions always speak louder than words. We hope that we can work together to take quick, short-term steps that will build a stronger Notre Dame community in the future.

Sincerely,

Tom O’Brien ’86,
Michael August ’96
Steven Saftig ‘03
Liam Dacey ‘04

I apologize this letter is not more personal, however this is the only contact information I can find on your Web site. I would ask, if you wish, that you forward this to the members of your organization.

I'm writing to apologize personally to the GALA-ND/SMC family. I was not personally at work the night the hateful and offensive comic went to print, and am working with my staff to figure out how exactly such content made its way onto our pages and what we can do to rectify the situation. While we cannot undo the damage that has already been done, I hope that you can accept our sincerest apology.

The content of the comic has no place in our newspaper, and further, has no place on campus. I wanted to let you know what we are doing to work to move forward.

We've contacted groups on both campuses to request their help in working to prevent this dialogue from existing, to foster a community of compassion and understanding and to help Notre Dame and Saint Mary's learn from this unfortunate mistake. We're updating and publishing revised content and Viewpoint policies, and being transparent with our editorial processes and staff changes after this incident.

We understand that your reactions to this situation may express a range of sentiments — anger, outrage, sadness, disappointment, betrayal. We would ask you talk to us to help work through this, and ask that you have faith that The Observer staff will work to rectify this to the best of our ability.

We know our actions might seem too little too late, but we ask that with your help we can move forward together as members of the Notre Dame family. The Observer has constantly strove to cover the work of student groups on campus and has worked closely with the Core Council, the Gender Relations Center and the Office of Student Affairs to help them communicate their messages.

Please accept our sincerest apology.

Thank you for reading,

Jenn

--
Jenn Metz
Editor-in-Chief
The Observer

Note:  This past Tuesday, a gay-bashing comic strip ran in The Observer.  You can see the comic that ran in the paper, as well as the one that was originally rejected and the hateful conversation that transpired, here.  GALA ND/SMC's official response is below. 

As officers of the Gay and Lesbian Alumni/ae of Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s College (GALA-ND/SMC) for the past two years, we have encountered people on campus who disagree with us on many issues. What we have not encountered from the student body, faculty, or administration is the lack of respect evidenced by the publication of this hateful cartoon from other members of the Notre Dame community.

This is not a question of free speech. If the editors weren’t concerned with community standards, they wouldn’t have rejected the first version of the cartoon.  No, the decision to publish it demonstrates a serious lack of judgment and lack of commitment to the Catholic belief in human dignity and stance against violence.
We know that the cartoon does not reflect the feelings of a majority of the people on the ND campus; and we have been heartened by many of the responses appearing in the Observer.  But this will hurt the university unless it is clear that Notre Dame does not tolerate violence against any members of its community. 

The author and editors seem to have missed the point of a Catholic education if they cannot see that LGBT students, faculty, staff and alumni are indeed members of the Notre Dame and Saint Mary’s family and should be treated as such.

We make every attempt to share with people outside of campus the positive steps being made to improve the lives of the LGBT community at ND and SMC. Sometimes this takes convincing, even with our own membership.  The publication of the cartoon is a prime example of why Notre Dame ranks first in The Princeton Review’s list of the most unwelcoming campuses for gay and lesbian students.  The noise being generated by this will drown out any good news about the work being done by the students, faculty and Core Council. That’s not good news if you care about our university’s reputation.

The administration needs to take the lead in responding by holding panel discussions with the Observer, the faculty and the student body. GALA’s more-than-900 members are ready to join with the rest of the Notre Dame community in stating that the free flow of ideas can only occur if we respect each other. 

Tom O’Brien ‘86, Michael August ‘96, Steven Saftig ’03, and Liam Dacey ‘04
GALA ND/SMC Officers

Hello,

As posted a few weeks ago (by Facebook, by email message to registered members of GALA-ND/SMC, and on this website), the current terms of GALA's officers will be expiring next month. Therefore, we have issued a call for candidates, detailed at the note below:

http://www.galandsmc.org/news.html?mode=PostView&bmi=258628

The deadline for stating your interest in a position is set for Sunday January 10. However, we have received interest thus far for just four of the five positions. While candidates for any position are welcomed and encouraged, if anyone among you is interested in running for and serving in the TREASURER position, your candidacy for service would be greatly welcomed.  Please review the note above for the procedure for announcing your interest.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Mike August '96
GALA-ND/SMC Treasurer, Administrator

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

As 2009 comes to a close, so does the tenure for this group of GALA officers. My two years as Chair have been truly gratifying. The students on campus continue the good fight to make life better for the entire Notre Dame LGBT community; as alumni, we play a critical role in supporting them and finding our own ways to foster change.  When we started two years ago, we identified five principal goals:

1. Developing an up-to-date membership database to make GALA more effective as an organization.
2. Developing an archive of GALA newsletters, activities, programs and other outreach efforts that have taken place at the regional and national level to prevent the loss of institutional memory.
3. Growing our dues paying membership ranks and our pool of funds to support programs. 
4. Establishing regular means of communication with Outreach ND, the student organization; the administrations at ND and SMC; and the Notre Dame Alumni Association at the national and regional level.
5. Forming partnerships with other gay alumni groups from Catholic colleges and universities and from other organizations to increase the number of voices expressing shared concerns and to develop critical mass for social and service activities in parts of the country where the small number of ND/Saint Mary’s grads has been an impediment to effective organization.

I am happy to say that we have made progress in all of these areas. Our membership database has been updated and is now available online (for dues-paying members). We have increased the number of dues-paying members and kept the organization financially sound while increasing the number of activities and programs we are able to support. The website has become home to all of our newsletters, and people interested in finding GALA can learn more about our past as well as our current activities. I am most proud perhaps of the support we have provided to students, increasing scholarship opportunities  among other efforts that raise our profile on campus and open doors with the administration and our fellow alumni.
 
We were also successful in updating GALA’s constitution. I am grateful for the serious attention that you gave to this task. As a result of your input we are looking at our own non-discrimination clause to make sure that we are as inclusive as possible of our trans-gendered members. Stay tuned for more on this front.
 
There is still much more to do even as we make this transition.
 

• GALA will be sponsoring  a speaker at the Notre Dame MBA Diversity Conference in February (http://business.nd.edu/diversityconference/). The conference is part of a week-long series of activities including an MBA recruiter Warm-up, a Diversity Reception and the Winter Career and Internship Fair.
• The response to our call for speakers for the recent Law School panel on LGBT legal issues was so overwhelming that we are investigating the possibility of developing a larger event looking at the same topic in the coming year. I will offer my assistance to the new Chair and Vice Chair for Programs in identifying funding opportunities for the event and in doing whatever needs to be done to bring it about. I hope that there will also be opportunities to build upon some new relationships with other Catholic colleges and universities in the process.
• We hope to do a reboot of our online Discussion Forum by March 2010.  We have had some member comments about difficulties using the website's  discussion board; our web provider is planning some upgrades this winter that should allow the board to become an easier-to-use and more fruitful gathering place for our members announcements and commentary.
  
• We need to increase the level of activity within the various parts of the country by identifying and supporting the efforts of regional coordinators.

I hope you will consider helping GALA with these important tasks by running for either Chair, Vice Chair for Programs, Vice Chair for Membership, Secretary or Treasurer. We need your ideas and enthusiasm to keep our work relevant.  Elections will be held at the end of January. More information including descriptions of the positions can be found at www.galandsmc.org. Outgoing Treasurer Mike August will be chairing the Nominations and Elections committee.  He is seeking 1-3 additional GALA members to assist him in reviewing candidates' statements of interest, preparing the online ballot, and validating final election results. Interested parties can email Mike at administrator@galandsmc.org.

Mike, Steven and Liam and regional coordinator Matt Roberts have been wonderful colleagues over the past two years. I thank them for their dedication and commitment, much of which occurred behind the scenes. And thank you as well for your support. Your contributions, ideas and most important, your active engagement with GALA, have made it a better organization. I look forward to continuing to work with you all, this time on the other side of the email.
 
Tom O'Brien '86
Chair, GALA-ND/SMC
chair@galandsmc.org