The group seeks to use the youth voice to fight for the equal rights of the LGBT community.

According to senior David Dresner, one of the co-founders of the group, the Right Side of History’s movement at the University has learned a great deal since its inception.

“Our time at Wash. U. has really been a due diligence period, and we really used it as a learning experience,” Dresner said. “Our strategy is to drop the rainbow and create this online tool to test the powers of Facebook looking to establish the largest list of LGBT supporters in the country and activate it in critical times.”

Dresner said that the movement is now moving in full force, having raised $40,000 since its inception. Two new presidents of the Washington University chapter, senior Ryan Courson and freshman Ethan Susseles, have taken office since October.

The group now plans to expand nationally, going to other college campuses whose LGBT communities want to get involved with the Right Side of History.

“Our business plan was designed using a netroots and grassroots strategy and was designed to engage the youth populous,” Dresner said.

Other multimedia strategies, such as YouTube videos and marketing clips have since been utilized as a part of this effort. The University has been designated as the hub of the movement, and Dresner says that the movement plans to have at least 15 schools join in the next six months. Larger organizations, including Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) have agreed to incubate the project and have donated offices in New York City to help the effort.

When confronted by the controversial issue of gay marriage, Dresner believes wholeheartedly that the issue cannot be decided along party lines.

“We think this is a bipartisan issue,” Dresner said. “It’s a human rights issue, we should have the right to work and live safely in each of our own apartments without the fear of being evicted. By broadening the issue as an American issue and rebranding equality it becomes very difficult for an American to argue against us.”

RSOH plans to make equality the next “in” thing, borrowing ideas from several other successful historical movements, from the Freedom Summer of 1964 to Project (RED). RSOH has an aggressive launch schedule and has formed official partnerships with policy the organizations GLAAD and Landor Associates. The organization’s Advisory Board includes the co-founder of Facebook, the COO of Bain & Co., the Treasurer of the DNC and senior executives from Google, Target and Levi Strauss.

The organization originally set out with the goal of passing an omnibus bill in Congress for LGBT rights,

“I was naïve at first in the idea of an omnibus bill passing, but I don’t regret that because I think it just shows how passionate I am about the issue,” Dresner said.

Support from heterosexual individuals has been an obstacle for the gay rights movement historically.

“It’s hard for a guy to stand up for a gay cause, but supporting LGBT equality doesn’t mean you have those preferences and that’s one of the messages we’re trying to portray,” Dresner said.

Sam Sussman, a freshman at Binghamton University who is heterosexual, has been responsible for leading the movement on his campus.

“I think that whenever you have an oppressed group, that group needs people in the dominant group to stand up for their rights and to help them in their fight for equality,” he said. “You can’t expect the group to find a way to get equal rights unless people who are not in that group stand up for them.”

While causes abound for young people to get involved, Dresner says that the Right Side of History is the most pressing issue of the time.

“Younger governments, democracies, they get it,” he said. “And to me this is a no-brainer issue, there is a bona fide minority and we need to protect them equally under the law.”

The Right Side of History seeks fundamentally to pass legislation allowing gay marriage nationally in the next two years. Their method in doing so is, they claim, novel: They seek to engage the 95 percent of straight youth in an effort to support gay marriage, rather than focusing on the 5 percent of the population that identifies as LGBT. Pride’s original disagreement with this policy was that it more or less cast to the side the voices of the community for which it sought to attain civil rights. This skirmish between different ideas in service of the same basic goal demonstrates the relevance of a prominent political binary: that of ends and means.

More simply put, organizations like Pride that focus more on LGBT populations perform gay-marriage advocacy with a focus on the means of the movement—it is only valid, presumably, if its means are true to the goal trying to be achieved. The Right Side of History, on the other hand, seems to display a greater concern for their goal, the end of their action—the legalization of same-sex marriage—than for the supposed integrity of its means.

Arguably, The Right Side has reached many more students already with their appeal to the majority “straight” audience at W.I.L.D. than has Pride in quite a while, but only because they sought to find allies among those not explicitly engaged with the collective LGBT voice. The Right Side of History might be credited with this, then: They are not afraid to succeed.

These words are a paraphrase of the description given by Slavoj Žižek of Vladimir Lenin, in a compilation of Lenin’s early writings that illustrate his push toward further revolution in the midst of the passive opportunism of many of the rest of the Russian Communists, who kept faith to the deterministic means dictated by Marxist texts. Žižek proposes that this attitude by Lenin—of reformulating means in order to get to what we know are just ends—is one we might adopt today. The Right Side of History seems to have adhered to this advice: By really actively rethinking the means used to achieve legislation on gay marriage, it moves toward the end goal of success rather than worrying so much about its own internal integrity, as the to-the-letter Marxist Mensheviks did in Russia.

The problem is this is Lenin. Russian Communism did not turn out well, and many might argue that it was a problem of execution rather than one of basic values. The integrity of a movement may in fact be elemental for it to succeed.

The advantage of our current situation is that, where Lenin could either wait for the workers to rise or spur revolution himself, a movement toward same-sex marriage can operate with both internal integrity and external engagement; it can maintain faithful means while focusing intensely on its end goal. The Right Side of History, I mean to say, adds a valuable second element to LGBT advocacy by bringing an attitude of intense goal-orientation. That orientation toward ends must be integrated with and driven by individuals actively engaged with the LGBT community; its means must match its ends. But again, this particular movement has this advantage: It can do both.

Senior David Dresner, co-founder of the “Right Side of History.” (Sam Guzik | Student Life)

Pat Carr | MCT Campus

Several weeks ago, senior David Dresner approached a military recruitment table at a University career fair, announced that he was gay and asked for an application. He was promptly denied.

The moment was not an extraordinary one.

Campus career fairs contradict the University’s non-discrimination policy by allowing the United States military, which will not enlist openly gay men and women, to recruit on campus. The University career fairs generally host employers that have non-discriminatory hiring policies akin to those of the University’s.

But because the University receives federal funding, it is required by law to allow military recruiters on campus, even though the military’s policy of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” bars openly gay people from enlisting in the armed forces.

Law students are already aware of the University’s conflicting obligation to allow recruiters on campus, as they are notified by letter every time military representatives attend a law school career fair. Now, thanks to the “Right Side of History” LGBT rights campaign, undergraduate students will soon be receiving similar notifications.

Dresner, co-founder of the “Right Side of History,” is spearheading a movement to bring similar notification letters to all undergraduate students. The “Right Side of History” seeks equality for the LGBT community by engaging straight youth. Dresner recently met with representatives from the Olin Business School, who agreed to send out the letters to business students.

“[They] were incredibly supportive, enthusiastic and gave me ways to move forward,” Dresner, an Olin student, said of the business school representatives.

Mark Brostoff, dean and director of the business school’s Weston Career Center, says he believes the letters will make clear that the University does not support the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.

Brostoff, an openly gay man, served in the U.S. navy from 1982-2002, before and after congress implemented “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Since he left the military, Brostoff has been nationally recognized for his work with LGBT career development.

“[The letters are] an acknowledgment that military recruiting on campus is not aligned with our school’s non-discrimination policies and that we recognize this as a matter of law that we do not condone,” Brostoff wrote in an e-mail to Student Life.

Senior Michael Freedman, a member of the “Right Side of History” campaign, says he thinks notification letters will help raise awareness on campus about society’s discrimination against gays and lesbians.

“I think [a letter] sends the message that discrimination is something real and is still happening now,” Freedman said. “I think oftentimes we mistakenly think of discrimination as a thing of the past. Hopefully, the letter will cause some straight students who maybe haven’t thought about the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy or discrimination against LGBT people to think,” Freedman said.

History: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and military recruiters on campus

News of the notification letters comes just days after President Obama announced that he is committed to ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Obama’s pledge, made at a benefit on Saturday for the LGBT rights group Human Rights Campaign (HRC), comes more than 15 years after the military’s policy went into effect.

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was enacted under the Clinton administration in 1993. In response, many schools refused to allow military recruiters on their campuses. Congress, in turn, responded with the Solomon Amendment, a 1995 law that permits Congress to cut federal funding from any university that does not allow military recruiters.

“[The Solomon Amendment] was this poison pill that schools were forced to swallow,” said Davin Rosborough, former president of OUTLaw, the law school’s LGBT activist group.

Following the Solomon Amendment, law schools across the country started sending notification letters to their students.

Rosborough says he understands the University is abiding by the Solomon Amendment but emphasizes that the University is not obliged to follow it.

“I think many of us understand the choice that the University made but we should remember it’s still a choice, although the University’s hand was forced,” Rosborough said.

Drafting the letter

Freedman is currently working with the deans of the business school to draft this letter. Set to be sent out before the next business school career fair, the final letter must be approved by Dean of the business school Mahendra Gupta.

The Right Side of History is currently working with Mark Smith, director of the Washington University Career Center, the National Society of Black Engineers and deans from each of the University’s individual schools to get other career fairs on campus to issue similar letters. .

This marks the first event Pride Alliance and the Right Side of History have jointly organized, and hopefully it is the beginning of an ongoing partnership. At first, interactions between the two groups were tense, with the Right Side of History fearing that Pride Alliance was opposed to its initiatives, and Pride Alliance markedly concerned that the Right Side of History would promote LGBT rights while denying a voice to LGBT people themselves. Discussions between Pride and the Right Side of History are ongoing as we try to work together to reach shared goals.

One goal, of course, is creating a safe, supportive community for LGBT students on campus. Come and show that you support an LGBT-friendly Wash. U. by participating in National Coming Out Day. Look for tables at the northeast corner of the DUC on Monday (and expect a healthy dose of Mariah Carey when we are allowed to play music from noon to 1 p.m.).

While National Coming Out Day calls attention to how far we have to go before reaching LGBT equality in the United States, most importantly, it is a celebration. It is a celebration of those who identify as LGBT and those straight-identifying folks who act as allies in the movement. We hope that you will join us. After all, closets are for clothes.

Shelby is a senior in Arts & Sciences. She can be reached via e-mail at slcarpen@wustl.edu.

W.I.L.D. as we know it is a place of carefree, drunken revelry, somewhere our campus has historically united in support of music and good times. The notion of a political speech in this environment initially caught many of us off guard. Greenberg’s speech, however, was delivered with a sense of raw emotion, realness and authenticity that made the political movement relevant to the event.

The more we think about it, the decision to include a political statement in the W.I.L.D. lineup conjures images of Woodstock and 1960s-era protests in which college students combined music and politics in an attempt to achieve social change. Greenberg’s invitation to the student body to join the start of a civil right’s movement “right now” recalls the days when Brookings Quad was the very site of activism on behalf of the black civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.

As college students, we entertain a nostalgia for an era we never saw. Our images of the 1960s form a vision of dedicated activism and charged concert environments that we cannot help but envy. Categorically, we admire student activism, particularly when it takes on creative new forms. A political statement at W.I.L.D. is one made with the capacity to engage more students than ever before.

Greenberg’s speech has the potential to be a starting point for true political activism on this campus, and a demonstration of student engagement in response to it may open doors for corporate support of The Right Side of History movement. In spite of the questionable receptivity of its intoxicated crowds, W.I.L.D. unites the student body more than any other event on campus. We commend senior David Dresner and the rest of the leadership of the Right Side of History for their ingenuity in using W.I.L.D. as a political soundstage. Moreover, we commend the leadership of Team 31 for taking a risk and allowing Greenberg’s speech to happen.

This activism, however, does not come without its flaws. Though Dresner was the first student leader to approach Team 31 about using the W.I.L.D. venue to spread a political message, we question whether The Right Side of History was the appropriate movement to change the nature of the event. The movement is very new and largely unestablished, and Greenberg’s speech—though well delivered —only provided inklings at what students may do to mobilize themselves for change.

We want to see more student activism on campus, and we like the notion of W.I.L.D. as a meaningful beginning for mass movements of social change. We also, however, want activism to be as effective as it can be. Greenberg’s speech was delivered early and came as a surprise to many in the audience. Better-fitting and better-publicized political activism could have the potential to cultivate even more passion among concertgoers.

And while we admire the traditions of 1960s activism, we fear that political messages delivered to intoxicated audiences have the potential to become unitary and unquestioned. In order for The Right Side of History’s movement to be effective, we must actively engage with the message delivered, and not simply remember it as a background to our W.I.L.D. memories.

If W.I.L.D.’s mission is to expand from good times into real political activism, we ask that Team 31 carefully consider how the statements delivered best fit into the concert’s format. Saturday’s speech is, potentially, the beginning to a tradition that can be honed and developed—a tradition that brings the social ruptures of our world to bear on a campus that can then begin to treat them politically as well as intellectually.

In the same week that I read the recent Student Life article about the Right Side of History, a new movement beginning at Wash. U. designed to engage straight youth in the struggle for gay rights, I also read a post on The New Republic’s Web site called “The Worst Argument You’ve Ever Read For Banning Openly Gay People From the Military.” The post was a critique of a recent Weekly Standard article written by James Bowman that argued, with no apparent sign of jest, that gay men and women should be excluded from military service because homosexuality contradicts traditional notions of masculinity.

Lest you think I am oversimplifying the argument, here is a direct quote from the article explaining its thesis: “This is not, of course, to say that homosexuals are weak or cowardly—only that the reputation of manliness, which we know to be an important component of military honor, is in practice incompatible with the imputation either of homosexuality or of weakness and cowardice.”

It was the kind of argument I find more appropriate for The Onion than for a leading conservative magazine, and its severe weakness only proves that there are no good arguments left in support of such bigotry and exclusion.

Bowman’s only answer for the obvious rebuttal that his conception of “manliness” (which is hardly an essential part of military service anyway, especially given the brave service of many women in today’s armed forces) is not inherent but rather socially contrived and can thus be challenged is to claim that such a challenge is not worth the minimal national security risk.

The truth, however, is that there is little reason to believe that the presence of openly gay soldiers would negatively affect military performance. In fact, the most compelling recent argument against excluding gays from the military was published last week in an official military journal. As its author, Air Force Col. Om Prakash wrote, “after a careful examination, there is no scientific evidence to support the claim that unit cohesion will be negatively affected if homosexuals serve openly.” As more and more military officials call for repeal, civilians have no legitimate reason to continue supporting our current flawed policy.

The real threat to national security is that our military continues to discharge qualified servicemen and women, whose skills and experience are badly needed in Iraq and Afghanistan, for no other reason than that they are openly gay. We should be thanking these individuals for their brave service and willingness to sacrifice for their country. Instead, we are firing them. Particularly troubling, we have discharged multiple Arab linguists despite the fact that they are critical to our mission in Iraq and are in short supply.

The reality is that “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is not just a discriminatory policy that is unfair to LGBT individuals; it is a nonsensical policy that has negative consequences for all of us. It is also one of the most compelling of many reasons why the struggle for LGBT civil rights is one that should concern us all.

The Right Side of History has based its strategy on this premise that discrimination of one minority group is harmful to all and should thus be a universal issue. The group has yet to prove itself, and I am anxious to see the results that their efforts will hopefully produce. Meanwhile, however, I am glad to see students at Wash. U. standing up for what is clearly the right side of this debate.

Method Man, half of the Method Man-Redman duo, raps during their headlining performance. (Princeton Hynes | Student Life)

Sounds of laughter and chatter drifted through the Brookings Quad along with the mingled smell of pizza, beer and smoke. Hands waved in the air and bodies swayed against each other while the music flowed on.

There goes another Walk In Lay Down (W.I.L.D.).

With Method Man and Redman as the headliner preceded by K’Naan and Passion Pit, Team 31 Productions did not disappoint its audience in this fall’s W.I.L.D.

Senior David Schubert, co-chair of Team 31, knows there is always one reliable measure he can count on to gauge student satisfaction and event success.

“We were out of pizza, so the turnout had to be good,” Schubert said.

Many students crowded around the stage to position themselves closer to the music and excitement of the concert.

Indie-electronic musicians Passion Pit, an opening act, take the stage at W.I.L.D. (Joshua Goldman | Student Life)

“I liked Passion Pit the most,” junior Ian Chui said. “I really like Passion Pit.”

Sophomore Michael Offerman echoed Chui’s appreciation for the opening alternative band.

“I think Passion Pit was the most well known and probably should have been the headliner,” he said. “Method Man and Redman—not many people knew their lyrics, but they were a good combo.”

Freshman Michaela Sass commented on the liveliness of the acts and the concert atmosphere.

“[The performers] were very energetic and engaging,” Sass said. “It was crowded and pretty intense and confusing—but fun. It was a lot of fun.”

W.I.L.D. with a political twist

Though most of the concert carried on as it would in the past, this fall’s W.I.L.D. started on a very different note.

Minutes before K’naan’s performance, a new kind of presence took the stage and demanded everyone’s attention.

Junior Alex Greenberg ran to the stage, grabbed the microphone and identified himself as a straight male and a member of Sigma Epsilon fraternity. For the next four minutes that followed, Greenberg introduced the Right Side of History—an organized effort supported by several University undergraduates to recharge the LGBT movement by garnering support from straight youths.

Greenberg spoke of his friend, senior David Dresner—one of the two founders of the Right Side of History. Dresner along with 2008 alum Brian Elliot, both of whom are openly gay, started the organization with the hope that it will one day become a national movement.

Dresner said he is glad Greenberg was the one to deliver the message.

“I think that having Alex deliver the message maintains the narrative that we’re using to garner support from straight people,” Dresner said. “He is close with me, and personally vocalized in the past his concern for my future. It was touching that [he] did that for me.”

A crowd of students cheer and dance as they listen to opening act K’Naan at W.I.L.D. in Brookings Quad on Saturday. (Princeton Hynes | Student Life)

Greenberg’s speech drew mostly positive cheers from the crowd. Many students clapped to acknowledge the group’s mission, while others remained more reserved while processing the message.

“Starting at Wash. U. in this quad at W.I.L.D. begins the trek to the Right Side of History,” Greenberg cried out to the audience. “It is not an event. It is not a student club. It is nothing of the sort. It is strictly a civil rights movement that all of you are very welcome to be a part of.”

Since the announcement at W.I.L.D. and an article focusing on The Right Side of History published in Student Life last Friday, Dresner said his inbox has been flooded with e-mails.

“There’s an unbelievable number of alumni and students who are interested. We’re building infrastructure as it grows,” he said. “We will continue to reach out at Wash. U. while reaching out to other universities in the country.”

Team 31 approved of the stage time that the Right Side of History had requested—a decision that Schubert deemed “just seemed right.”

“Honestly, it’s not a perfect venue, but it’s the only large-scale venue at the University to give a speech like that,” he said. “We did think about the appropriateness, but we knew it would be a good chance for them. We are all really supportive of the group and its mission.”

“We wanted to help them in whatever way we could,” Schubert added.

Team 31, however, is not making any promises to give other social issues stage time in future shows.

“We didn’t want to politicize W.I.L.D.,” Schubert said. “The Right Side of History was a group that had reached out to us. They had a great agenda, a pretty clear-cut message and an idea of how we could help them.”

For Dresner, there was no better place or time to deliver the message of activism.

“The noble energy complements the fun, cohesive message of W.I.L.D.,” he said. “At the end of the day, there aren’t that many times when all of Wash. U. gets together. We had the opportunity, and we seized the day.”

Junior Alex Greenberg delivers a speech at W.I.L.D. on behalf of nascent campus political organization The Right Side of History. In his speech Greenberg urged his fellow students to join a new civil rights movement that would take the nation by storm and secure equal rights for the LGBT community in America. Co-founded by senior David Dresner, The Right Side of History seeks equality for the LGBT community by engaging straight youth.

Students react to The Right Side of History’s political speech at W.I.L.D. this past Saturday. Co-founded by senior David Dresner, The Right Side of History targets straight people to join the organization’s quest for LGBT rights in America. Junior Alex Greenberg delivered the 4-minute speech right before opening act K’Naan took the stage.

Senior David Dresner doesn’t want his children to have parents who are second-class citizens.

Over the next two years, Dresner hopes to jump-start a national movement by applying new strategies to gain equal rights for the LGBT community.

Dresner’s journey as a gay rights activist started just seven weeks ago when he was approached by Brian Elliot—the older brother of 2008 Washington University alum Marc Elliot—to join him in a project called “The Right Side of History.”

Senior David Dresner works with sophomore Michael Weiss in his mission, entitled “The Right Side of History,” which strives to launch the gay rights movement into the mainstream and eventually to pass legislation guaranteeing the LGBT community equal status. (Sam Guzik | Student Life)

Dresner and Elliot—both openly gay men—hope that The Right Side of History will reshape the status quo of the LGBT movement by using straight youth to garner mainstream interest and propel the movement into the national political sphere.

Equal rights in 26 months

The Right Side of History’s 26-month goal is to pass legislation akin to the 1964 Civil Rights Act that would ultimately afford the LGBT community equal rights in the United States.

The idea to engage straight people in the struggle for gay rights came to Elliot after he read a Columbia University study conducted in every state. The study showed that at least 75 percent of each state supported equal legal rights—a figure much larger than Elliot had anticipated.

Despite this widespread support, however, 29 states do not have laws on record prohibiting employers from terminating employment based on sexual orientation. Additionally, 13,000 people have been discharged from the military in violation of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” for admitting their homosexuality.

“The second takeaway of the study was [that] the young folks overwhelmingly support the most controversial issues,” Elliot said. “Young people were the vanguards of the civil rights movement. This is their generation’s turn to hold our country to its own ideals. It’s not fine for laws to treat people differently.”

Straight support

Dresner said it mathematically makes sense to place a large emphasis on targeting straight people since straight people make up between 90 and 95 percent of the population.

“My efforts right now really need to be focused on the larger 95 percent of the people, and if I’m going to really demonstrate and get the show of force that I’m looking for, I need to go for the harder demographic first,” Dresner said.

Dresner said he believed that gays in the United States would achieve equal rights within 30 years time. But when Elliot said he could fast-forward these results to the year 2011, Dresner knew he wanted to take part in this movement.

Facing Congress

Every year since 1994, Congress has attempted to prohibit discrimination against employees on the basis of sexual identity and orientation as well as disability through the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. That bill has consistently failed to garner enough support to pass both houses of Congress.

Senior David Dresner (second from left) leads a meeting of students involved with nascent organization fighting for gay rights; the movement, known as The Right Side of History, hopes to see sweeping gay rights legislation passed nationally in the next two years. Also pictured are, from left to right, are sophomore Jeremy Cramer Gibbs, sophomore Michael Weiss, junior David Klein, junior David Dobbs and Gregory Hogan, regional director of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity. (Sam Guzik | Student Life)

If passed in its entirety, the proposed bill, The Civil Rights Act of 2011 with Religious Exemptions, would be more expansive than the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. The 2011 Civil Rights Act would prohibit job discrimination and afford LGBT Americans the same federal rights of citizenship that are afforded to heterosexual Americans.

The ‘Theory of Change’

Elliot and Dresner hope to tackle this ambitious goal by following the “Theory of Change”—a model developed by the movement that aims to empower youth and engage millions to make change and demand equality.

By doing so, Elliot and followers of the movement hope to pervade American culture and make the issue of gay rights a prominent one–one on the minds of national legislators.

“We’re hoping to engage millions of youth across the country,” Dresner said. “We’re trying to charge straight youth in an autonomous action.”

Powerful support

A professional group, dubbed “Creative Geniuses,” has been formed for The Right Side of History in New York and Washington, D.C. A leading executives from consulting firms are already on board and they said they have spoken with several strategists responsible for the Obama campaign’s success.

Dresner and Elliot are currently seeking to expand the group.

A band of brothers

Dresner is launching the campaign at Wash. U., and he found his first supporters in his fraternity house—Sigma Phi Epsilon (SigEp). His brothers have provided assistance to the movement at the University.

“At SigEp, there are a lot of people who want to get involved and help out,” said junior Lionel Johnnes, a member of SigEp. “The challenge will be branching out and stepping outside of the Wash. U. bubble and spreading to the majority of the population.”

While the support has already spread beyond SigEp on campus, Dresner said he hopes to use the fraternity as a platform from which to reach other college campuses.

With more than 13,000 current members, Sig. Ep. is the largest fraternity in the nation in terms of current members, and Dresner has plans to visit SigEp chapters through the country to garner support.

A group of approximately 25 Wash. U. students has been meeting each Saturday to discuss strategies for spreading the group’s message and expanding the movement.

The right approach?

Although Dresner said he has received overwhelming support for his campaign on campus, The Right Side of History’s tactic to primarily engage straight people represents a controversial stance within the gay rights movement.

In the past, the gay rights movement has traditionally been led by members of the LGBT community.

Junior Ayla Karamustafa, an advocate for LGBTQIA rights, said that while she respects Dresner and his team, she believes the movement disregards the history of the LGBT movement and excludes many people who have devoted their entire lives to the cause.

“Our movement centers on gaining rights for individuals of various sexual orientations and gender identities of all racial backgrounds; to take away those identities or to refuse—at the very least—to acknowledge them renders the entire thing senseless,” Karamustafa said.

Senior Laura Lane-Steele, president of Pride Alliance, said her group agrees with the intention and goals of the Right Side of History but will be working toward the goal of equality in different ways.

“Obviously everyone on Pride is going to have a different opinion on this movement and the issues surrounding it,” Lane-Steele said. “Pride and the Right Side of History have different strategies in achieving goals for LGBT people.”

The ultimate goal

Dresner said he expects challenges along the way but will continue to garner support until he gets the American youth on the right side of history.

“I think a lot of people at Wash. U. care about this issue,” Dresner said. “People can’t believe these types of inequities exist in this country. Wash. U. can be the start of a civil rights movement.”

With additional reporting by Kate Gaertner