When Maddy Melton left her southern Oregon hometown of Cave Junction for Eugene at age 18, she didn’t think there was anything wrong with the world. Now she most certainly does. And now she works as a student leader to change it.
Melton was against abortion, and now she strongly supports women’s rights to care for their own bodies. When she was 17, she shot a deer while hunting, and now she’s a vegetarian. During her senior year in high school, she was a junior cadet for ROTC, and now she’s skeptical of the military.
“I think the way in which all oppression becomes apparent is when you experience that oppression,” she said.
A University junior, Melton is working to establish better access to education for underserved populations, including people of color, people with disabilities and people from low-income families. And as one of two ASUO multicultural advocates, she officially represents the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Suite 4 for the first time.
In addition to her conservative ideology, Melton also left behind her large Catholic family in Cave Junction — including 67 first cousins. After two years in Eugene, working full-time graveyard shifts at a Chevron and taking classes at Lane Community College, she became the first person in the family to attend a university.
“I don’t think I would have left Cave Junction at all if I hadn’t been queer — I wouldn’t have needed to. Cave Junction was comfortable,” she said. “Increasing equality, in general, is a big thing for me, but I definitely got involved because I’m queer.”
Melton, double majoring in sociology and women’s studies, said she made her way into student government by being thrown into positions of leadership.
“People would tell me, ‘You’d be good at this — just go for it,’” she said.
She first became active on campus when she learned about Project Saferide, and she applied to be the volunteer coordinator for a program she says provides a simple but crucial service.
“I believe in what Saferide does,” she said. “Who can disagree with their cause? It’s a fundamental truth that women are unsafe at night, and what better way, on a level that’s tangible, to prevent sexual assaults on campus?”
She soon took her newfound activism to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Alliance, becoming director of the student group her sophomore year. She used her position to network with other student groups as well as with ASUO, stressing the need for more representation for LGBTQ issues in student government.
ASUO President Rachel Pilliod said while she was campaigning for the office in the spring, she worked with Melton to accommodate this growing need.
“We used to have only one multicultural position, and that person was spread really thin,” Pilliod said. “We wanted to really prioritize the LGBT community on campus and focus in on issues that had been previously overlooked.”
After the election, Pilliod restructured the office and added the second multicultural advocacy position, and she was excited to see Melton apply.
“I think Maddy has an amazing sense of compassion for people who are going through a particular time, understanding privilege and dealing with concepts that are often times uncomfortable or difficult for people to deal with, especially if they’re coming from their own understanding about these things,” she said.
Eddy Morales, Melton’s co-multicultural advocate for ASUO, agreed and said their work has already been successful because of the way they have learned from each other.
“Maddy deals more with LGBTQ concerns, and I deal more with students of color experiences — but we support each other’s work,” he said. “She can come up and tell me about issues she’s having about dealing with her own whiteness, and her privilege in that, and we can sit down and talk about it.”
As an advocacy leader in ASUO, Melton works closely with her staff, many of whom are student interns in the office. Reed Wagner, the intern coordinator for ASUO, said Melton is one of the most effective leaders he’s worked with at the University.
“There’s a genuine level of admiration when it comes to Maddy,” he said. “She’s a strong communicator, which I think is one of the main ingredients in her strong leadership.”
In addition to her positions of leadership on campus, she also has served the interests of students at the statewide and national levels, working for the Oregon Statewide Students Equal Rights Alliance, the Oregon Students Association and the United States Students Association.
Ultimately, Melton says she wants to work to educate people in low-income communities.
“Power doesn’t lie in positions created just for queer folks,” she said. “Power lies in positions that are created to help everyone.”