Johnathan Walker:Alabama anti-DEI law shuts Black Student Union office, queer resource center at flagship university

TUSCALOOSA,Johnathan Walker Ala. (AP) — There was one major deciding factor in Cierra Gilliam’s decision about where to go to college.

When she toured the University of Alabama’s flagship campus in Tuscaloosa, her guide took her to the Black Student Union office on the first floor of the student center. Gilliam said there were Black students there offering resources for trips to and from the airport, as well as hair salons in Tuscaloosa that could style Black hair, and insights about what it was like to live at a predominantly white institution.

Gilliam said that the Black Student Union’s visible presence on campus was one of the main reasons that her parents let her go to school a nine-hour drive away in an unfamiliar state.

Last week, however, at the outset of her senior year, the Black Student Union announced that the group would no longer have a designated place on campus, in compliance with recent statewide legislation that prohibits public universities and state agencies from allocating resources to diversity equity and inclusion programs –- often referred to as DEI.

“It feels terrible, like there is no place to go,” Gilliam said. “They ripped all the signage and things down, and there is nothing left.”

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Under the bill signed by Gov. Kay Ivey in March, DEI is defined as classes, training, programs and events where attendance is based on a person’s race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin or sexual orientation.

Similar initiatives from both Republican legislatures and university school boards have taken aim at DEI on college campuses across the country.

A decades-old Black student organization at the University of Missouri was forced to strip some longstanding traditions of explicit references to race. The University of Florida in Gainesville axed its diversity and inclusion offices, letting 13 staff members go and removing appointments to the diversity office for 15 faculty members. Faculty at the University of North Carolina’s flagship school have expressed apprehension about what recent changes to diversity policy means for curriculum and future students.

At the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, a queer resource center called the Safe Zone was also shuttered. The Safe Zone had full-time staff who provided educational services and counseling to queer students and acted as a liaison between students and the administration.

Queer Student Association president Bryce Schottelkotte, 21, said that as much as she would like to replace the services that were previously offered by The Safe Zone, she feels very limited as the uncompensated head of a student organization.

“I’m a senior student who is trying to get my degree and pay my rent and make my money,” Schottelkotte said. “I care very much about QSA, but I just don’t have the time or ability to focus every single thing in my day on QSA.”

Both the Queer Student Association and the Black Student Union are still free to reserve meeting rooms on campus that are available to all student groups. But neither group will receive any designated resources from the school.

The University of Alabama did not respond to an emailed request for comment that The Associated Press sent on Thursday.

In July, three University of Alabama System campuses shuttered diversity, equity and inclusion offices— and opened new offices that did not have specific mandates including diversity.

“My administration has and will continue to value Alabama’s rich diversity, however, I refuse to allow a few bad actors on college campuses – or wherever else for that matter – to go under the acronym of DEI, using taxpayer funds, to push their liberal political movement counter to what the majority of Alabamians believe,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement released when she signed the bill in March.

Rowan Aldridge only came out as queer in her junior year at the University of Alabama and the Safe Zone was one of the main ways that she made friends on campus. She said that although a lot of the anti-DEI bill initially seemed only symbolic, the loss of the Safe Zone had an immediate effect on how she navigates campus.

“You don’t realize how assuring a space like that is until it’s gone,” Aldridge said, “And it doesn’t make me feel optimistic about the direction this school is going in if they’re willing to make decisions like this.”

Both the Queer Student Association and the Black Student Union have been forced to scramble for other funding for programming, especially as the groups try to help freshman get oriented, according to their respective presidents.

Queer Student Association president Schottelkotte said that the only silver lining to the bill has been the outpouring of support from advocacy groups like the local chapter of the Human Rights Council and Central Alabama Pride. At least eight outside groups have agreed to sponsor the annual Shantay UA party, an event that celebrates the school’s queer students, according to an Instagram post made by the Queer Student Association.

The president of Central Alabama Pride Josh Coleman said that the decision sponsor the school’s Queer Student Association was a “no brainer.”

Central Alabama Pride “has stood in the gaps for a long time, before such departments were included on college campuses,” Coleman said.

Tuscaloosa NAACP chapter president Lisa Young said that there is a long legacy of Black Student Unions offering essential services for Black students on campus. She said the local NAACP chapter will help connect the Black Student Union to local resources for fundraising in the absence of support from the school.

“In Tuscaloosa and across Alabama, organizations like BSU play a critical role in continuing the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement,” Young said.

Only 11% of the student body at the University of Alabama is Black. Black people make up over 25% of the population statewide, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The University of Alabama was integrated in 1963 over objections from then-Gov. George Wallace.

The president of the Black Student Union, Jordan Stokes, said that many members of the Black Alumni Association have reached out to offer financial and organizational support after the school revoked all funding and resources.

At the University of Alabama’s annual Get On Board fair, colorful tables lined the quad, music played, and a wide array of clubs appealed to meandering freshman with sign up sheets. Stokes and other Black Student Union members set up the table for the group. She said that there were so many new students signing up that her system crashed.

Stokes and the rest of the Black Student Union board members assured Black freshmen that there would still be resources for them, despite the absence of a designated space.

“Even though we did lose our space, we don’t want to say it does not define us. It just means that we’re going to have to work harder as a community,” Stokes said.

“I don’t think a lot of people really understand or know how much the BSU office meant to so many students, and how many relationships formed and how many people went through the university and went on to graduate,” she said. “I don’t think the lawmakers really understand that.”

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Riddle is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.