TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — There was one major deciding factor in Cierra Gilliam’s decision about where to go to college.
When she visited the main campus of the University of Alabama 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 offering resources for traveling to and from the airport, hair salons in Tuscaloosa that could style black hair, and insights into what it was like to live at a predominantly white institution.
Gilliam said the visible presence of the Black Student Union on campus was one of the main reasons her parents let her go to school nine hours away in an unfamiliar state.
Last week, however, at the start of her senior year, the Black Student Union announced that the group would no longer have a permanent home on campus, in accordance with recent state legislation that prohibits public universities and state agencies from allocating funds to diversity, equity and inclusion — often referred to as DEI — programs.
“It feels horrible, like there’s no place to go,” Gilliam said. “They’ve taken all the signs and stuff away, and there’s nothing left.”
Under the bill that Gov. Kay Ivey signed in March, DEI is defined as classes, trainings, programs and events where participation is based on an individual’s race, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin or sexual orientation.
Similar initiatives from both Republican legislatures and university administrations are targeting DEI on college campuses across the country.
A decades-old black student organization at the University of Missouri was forced to discard some old traditions of explicit references to race. The University of Florida in Gainesville has disbanded its diversity and inclusion departments, laid off 13 staff members, and eliminated diversity department appointments for 15 faculty members. Faculty of the The flagship school of the University of North Carolina have expressed concerns about the impact of recent changes to diversity policies on the curriculum and prospective students.
At the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, a queer resource center called the Safe Zone was also closed. The Safe Zone had a full-time staff that provided educational services and counseling to queer students and served as a liaison between students and administration.
Bryce Schottelkotte, 21, president of the Queer Student Association, said that while she would like to replace the services previously offered by The Safe Zone, she feels very limited as the unpaid head of a student organization.
“I’m a senior trying to get my degree, pay my rent, and make a living,” Schottelkotte said. “I care deeply about QSA, but I just don’t have the time or the ability to focus all of my day-to-day on QSA.”
Both the Queer Student Association and the Black Student Union are still allowed to reserve meeting spaces on campus that are available to all student groups, but neither group receives designated funds from the school.
The University of Alabama did not respond to an emailed request for comment from The Associated Press on Thursday.
In July, three University of Alabama System Campuses closed diversity, equity and inclusion offices and opened new offices that had no specific mandates, including diversity.
“My administration has and will continue to value Alabama’s rich diversity, but I refuse to allow a few bad actors on college campuses — or anywhere else — to go by the DEI acronym and use taxpayer dollars to promote their liberal political movement, contrary to what the majority of Alabama residents believe,” Gov. Kay Ivey said in a statement released when she signed the bill in March.
Rowan Aldridge didn’t come out as queer until her junior year at the University of Alabama, and the Safe Zone was one of the primary ways she made friends on campus. She said that while much of the anti-DEI law initially seemed symbolic, the loss of the Safe Zone had an immediate effect on how she navigates campus.
“You don’t realize how comforting that space is until it’s gone,” Aldridge said. “And it doesn’t make me optimistic about the direction this school is going to go if they’re willing to make these kinds of decisions.”
Both the Queer Student Association and the Black Student Union have been forced to look for other funding for their programs, especially since the groups want to help first-year students with their orientation, according to their respective presidents.
Queer Student Association President Schottelkotte said the bill’s one bright spot is the overwhelming 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 honoring the school’s queer students, according to an Instagram post by the Queer Student Association.
Central Alabama Pride President Josh Coleman said the decision to sponsor the school’s Queer Student Association was a “no brainer.”
Central Alabama Pride “was on the shelf for a long time before chapters like this were established on college campuses,” Coleman said.
Tuscaloosa NAACP chapter president Lisa Young said there is a long tradition of Black Student Unions providing essential services to Black students on campus. She said the local NAACP chapter will help connect the Black Student Union with local fundraising resources 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 University of Alabama’s student body is Black. Black people make up more than 25% of the state’s population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census. The University of Alabama integrated in 1963, despite objections from then-Governor George Wallace.
Black Student Union President Jordan Stokes said many members of the Black Alumni Association reached out to them offering financial and organizational support after the school pulled all funding and resources.
At the University of Alabama’s annual Get On Board fair, colorful tables lined the plaza, music was blasting, and a wide variety of clubs approached the wandering freshmen with sign-up sheets. Stokes and other members of the Black Student Union set up the table for the group. She said so many new students signed up that her system crashed.
Stokes and the other Black Student Union board members assured the black first-year students that there would still be facilities for them, despite the lack of a designated space.
“Even though we lost our space, it doesn’t mean it doesn’t define us. It just means we 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 were created and how many people went through the university and graduated,” she said. “I don’t think legislators 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 under-reported issues.