Email to students gives voting 'recommendations'

Students at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management recently received an email advising them how to vote during the midterm elections.

The Kellogg Student Association Diversity Inclusion Committee sent an email to graduate students listing upcoming events that would help them to become “global leaders” by “leveraging diversity,” as well as voting recommendations from the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago.

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The committee advised students that the LGBTQA+ community is currently “under direct attack” by the Trump administration and urged them to vote. In addition to providing resources for locating polling places and registering to vote, the committee also forwarded voting recommendations from the bar association.

“What’s really important this year are local judges,” Pride @ Kellogg said in a preface to the bar association’s memo.

The bar association urged students to vote for Democrat candidate Thomas F. McGuire for an open Cook County Illinois Circuit Judge seat, as well as to “Vote NO to retaining James M. Varga, Matthew E. Coghlan, Lionel Jean-Baptiste.” The Chicago Bar Association found all three of these sitting judges qualified for retention, but the Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago did not recommend them for retention.

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The Lesbian and Gay Bar Association of Chicago also advised students to vote “yes” on Proposition 3 in Massachusetts and to encourage others to do the same. 

“If you are voting in Massachusetts, or know anyone who is, please spread the word,” the announcement read. “This is a statewide popular vote to preserve protections for transgender people from discrimination in public, such as hotels, restaurants and stores.”

A “yes” vote on Proposition 3 in Massachusetts is a vote to uphold an existing state law that requires gender-specific public spaces, such as bathrooms, to allow individuals to enter based on their chosen “gender identities.”  

The missive went on to explain that Massachusetts “sets an example for other states,” adding that “we do not want the first statewide vote to strip trans people of their rights” and urging students to use the #yeson3 hashtag on social media. 

Campus Reform reached out to Kellogg School of Management and the Kellogg Student Association for comment, but did not receive one in time for press.  

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