Tucked in the top front corner of the University Center at Lehigh University lies the Rainbow Room, a safe haven for students of all sexual orientations. This room is the location of the Spectrum club that meets Tuesday’s at 4:30. Spectrum President Ethan Nadler explains that this club serves three purposes. It is a social gathering for LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning, Intersex, Ally) students. It performs advocacy for students on campus, and it is also informational sponsoring events like National Coming Out day and the Silent protest.
Nadler’s hope is that “we can encourage LGBT students to feel comfortable coming out and supporting our group” as well as to “promote tolerance and acceptance among the allies at Lehigh University,” General acceptance occurs through education and understanding people of all sexual orientations. This is done through Educational programs like bringing Workplace Attorney- Investigator and Trainer Robin Oaks to campus. Oaks focuses on ending discrimination due to sexual orientation in the workplace. She spoke at a Lehigh Symposium about the Kinsey scale. This scale demonstrates the idea that there is a Spectrum to sexuality; people do not fit into neat and exclusive heterosexual or homosexual categories.
Spectrum also has entertainment events like the drag show that happens every spring here at Lehigh. Nadler describes this as a night where local performers (like the fantastic Ferosha Couture) as well as Lehigh students dress up in drag and dance to raise money. The Proceeds go to the Pennsylvania diversity network which provides legal help to LGBT people who are being discriminated against in the work place, advocates for marriage equality, and helps gay couples with adoptions. This year Spectrum hopes to put a bounty on a professor’s head. If students meet this amount of donations the professor will preform in the show.
There are also informational events hosted by the club. These include outreach events like national coming out day. “National coming out day is a nation wide event dedicated to promoting LGBT visibility and providing a safe space for people to come out,” Nadler explains. This year the rainbow room moved all of the furniture that usually adorns the cozy space outside and organized it on the UC front lawn. The group hung out there that day and proceeded doing the activities that they usually do in the room. They also had 60 Lehigh students and faculty take part in the proud to be an ally campaign. This is a campaign where students take pictures with a white board telling the reason why they are proud to be a straight ally to the LGBT community. This campaign and it’s pictures are located on Lehigh’s website (http://www.lehigh.edu/~inrainb…).
The rainbow room and Spectrum are open to straight allies that are heterosexual students that support members of the LGBTQIA community. “Straight people who support equality are allies,” says Nadler who believes that an effective ally is someone who “stands up when they see discrimination happening and will call someone out when they say ‘that’s so gay,’ ” A program that runs independently from Spectrum is the Greek Allies. These are members of the Greek houses and honors fraternities that want to promote LGBT equality. Greek Allies are specially trained and go through a rigorous application process.
These programs help to promote equality on Lehigh’s campus. In this day and age we are extremely progressive when dealing with matters of sexual orientation, however, homophobia is still slightly prevalent here at Lehigh. Nadler states that “On the whole Lehigh students are not Homophobic but there is still work to be done, as long as there is any homophobia, and there definitely is some, it is a problem,” Spectrum, The Rainbow Room, and Greek Allies help to create a safe environment for students of all sexual orientations. The Rainbow Room hopes to encourage LGBTQIA students to feel comfortable coming out as well as supporting the group. Their goal is to promote tolerance and acceptance among all students at Lehigh University.