LGBT & Mainstream At IE Business School

It is important, many say, not to be complacent about the growth in LGBT clubs. Even as recently as 2006, there was significant resistance. “When we announced that IE would have an LGBT club there were some articles in the news, and a huge backlash. We launched a newsletter to the IE database and tons of people asked to be removed from the list,” de Isasa Fereres says. However, he and his co-founder were able to continue on their course because they were backed by the school. “They really believed in what we were doing,” de Isasa Fereres adds. (This might be slightly rose-tinted — not all IE staff supported the club at the start.)

Even today, not all schools are entirely comfortable with LGBT groups. Some clubs say that that administrators mysteriously lose the paperwork when asked to sign off their events. Others say that posters for events vanish from notice-boards. Not everybody embraces diversity. Since 2016, students at Barcelona’s IESE school, which is run by the Catholic Opus Dei group, have been trying to set up an LGBT club, so far without success

Early in 2018 a group of LGBT students at IESE sent a petition to students and alumni asking for the school to give way. Although it gained over 500 signatures the official line remains that IESE has a ban on clubs related to personal identity, which covers religion, politics, or sexual identity. Clearly, there is a tension between the diverse student body and generally liberal teaching staff, and the deeply conservative views of the people who run the school. “They have always tried to keep this under the radar, because obviously it is an issue when you are trying to attract a diverse range of students,” says Matthew Gardiner, one of the students behind the petition.

The school has engaged, says Gardiner, “but the progress has been painfully slow.” Having an official club matters because it would help attract sponsors for events, and allows the school to be at the start-of-year club fair. “That would confer legitimacy on the club, and send out the message to LGBT students who have been closeted that it is okay to be out here. Some people still fear that it will harm their prospects. I don’t think that is true, but an official club would clearly signal it,” Gardiner says.  IESE say that they are considering the request, but want to ensure that “the professional character of the clubs is preserved.”

LESS ACTIVISM, MORE NETWORKING

That language might seem a little po-faced, when faced with the slightly raucous feel of IE’s club, but it is perhaps a good indicator of how LGBT clubs will develop. As LGBT people gain legal protection and social acceptance, so the need for campaigning clubs to increase the visibility of LGBT people decreases. But another kind of club might develop in its place. When Javier Arias Brenes arrived at Nyenrode Business School in the Netherlands from Costa Rica to take his MBA in 2012 — a move they made specifically because he and his partner would have more legal protection than in their native country — the school had no LGBT organization. “In the Netherlands they have passed the point where the clubs are vital. As an LGBT student, you are just another student,” he says. 

However, Brenes realized that some LGBT students might benefit from a club. “I thought that, as there is a community of LGBT students and alumni, we could connect them in more of a business network,” says Arias Brenes, who is now the Nyenrode MBA program’s community and marketing manager. Just as people with an interest in entrepreneurship or the automotive industry might get together to share experiences and network, so LGBT people can too. 

“There is no need for activism, but I see especially with younger students who are still discovering themselves but don’t necessarily feel comfortable, the openness of these meetings can be a positive experience for them,” Arias Brenes adds. Also, talking to people who went through the social changes of the 70s and 80s might have lessons for young people who might be facing the same challenges they did, in their home countries, businesses or private lives, now.

‘JUST ANOTHER WAY TO CONNECT TO PEOPLE’

David Ehrich, who attended Tuck business school in the late 1990s, says that he put off business school for a decade because he didn’t feel that he would be safe there, and that the sorts of firms that recruited from business schools wouldn’t hire an openly gay man anyway. While at Tuck, he helped create an informal network of LGBT people because, he says, “the whole point about business school is networking, and you should leverage them wherever you can — whether it’s drinking whisky, fly-fishing, or being LGBT.” Creating an LGBT club is “just another way to connect to people,” he says. 

Times have changed, in the US at least. Now even business schools run by the most conservative groups have LGBT groups. For schools that pride themselves on attracting the brightest and best, it makes sense, because having a visible LGBT club can help with recruitment. It might not be acceptable to ask people if they are LGBT, so one way to increase the chances that your student cohort is diverse is to have a very visible club. “It is a way for institutions to signal to candidates that this is a safe place, and one where they should want to come. Not having one is a really important statement,” Ehrich says. 

Are LGBT clubs really necessary these days? Yes. For a start, they can help students from conservative cultures to be themselves and make the most of their education. And they offer an opportunity to network, which no sensible student ever turns down. Also, they are a very clear signal from a school that it values diversity, and are a mechanism for recruiting LGBT students. Finally, in these febrile times, the degree of enthusiasm a school shows for its LGBT club is a clear sign of its fundamental values. 

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