With growing support of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and  transgender (GLBT) community in the nation, there has been an equal level of support at Southwest Minnesota State University. Given this, the GLBTA Club at SMSU has become an active group in the past few years that continues to grow.

Along with growing membership, the GLBTA Club is seeing more attendance at meetings. Their current space has posed many problems to this ever-growing population.

“Our actual club room is about the size of a closet, and we can fit five people max if we all squeezed together,” Maranda Johnson, president of the GLBTA Club said.

Due to this, Johnson and her staff applied to move rooms at the end of the 2015-16 school year. Ultimately, their request to move to a different room in the Social Science building was denied.

The SMSU Spacing Committee is a separate group run by the university. Deb Kerkaert is the Vice President of Finance and Administration, as well as the chair for the Spacing Committee. With over 90 clubs and organizations on campus, space can be limited with the few rooms that are available.

“In regards to student organizations, it [Space Allocation Policy] does say that generally spaces are not allocated to student organizations unless they had them already…Otherwise, space for clubs and organizations can be given from departmental space,” Kerkaert said.

The GLBTA Club has submitted requests to move several times, which have all been turned down.

“Honestly, we aren’t sure why we haven’t been moved,” Johnson said. “We have petitioned more than once, and we’ve even pointed out unused rooms that we could use. However, they continuously deny our requests, even though we have enough members to warrant an upgrade.”

With the nature of the GLBTA Club’s organization, some wonder whether or not the decision to not move the club elsewhere has to do with discrimination.

“I would say no [not discriminatory],” Kerkaert said. “We’ve also denied space for other clubs and organizations and it’s not just them. Because they did have space, we felt they could continue to use the space they had whereas other clubs and organizations don’t have any individual spaces.”

“Because of the nature of our club, discrimination is always a possibility, even unconsciously,” Johnson said. “However, SMSU prides itself in its diversity and its willingness to accommodate minorities, such as international and disabled students. Discrimination is the last thing I would like to accuse SMSU of.”