On Thursday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) published a 400-page analysis of research on gender-affirming care for transgender youth, as directed by President Donald Trump. The agency used the release of the report to declare that available science does not support providing gender-affirming care to trans youth. LGBTQ+ advocacy groups worry the report will be used to further restrict gender-affirming care and to change medical guidelines in ways that harm trans youth.
The president mandated the report in an executive order condemning the medical treatment — without evidence — as a form of mutilation, amid a broader push by the administration to exclude trans people from public life. Trump’s order asked the health agency to review the “best practices for promoting the health of children who assert gender dysphoria,” while pressuring youth clinics to halt treatment or lose federal funding.
Now, the HHS has produced that report. The agency combed through research on the outcomes of puberty blockers, hormone replacement therapy, social transition, psychotherapy, and the rare cases of surgeries on adolescents and young adults diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
Gender dysphoria, the reason that most trans people undergo gender-affirming care, is a strong and persistent distress felt when one’s body is out of sync with their gender identity. Without treatment, gender dysphoria can lead to severe negative impacts in day-to-day life.
The agency states in its executive summary of the report that the document is not meant to provide clinical practice guidelines or issue legislative or policy recommendations. However, the report does imply that health care providers should refuse to offer gender-affirming care to adolescents and young adults on the basis that such care comes with the potential for risk — despite little evidence for that risk actually being found in the report.
“The evidence for benefit of pediatric medical transition is very uncertain, while the evidence for harm is less uncertain,” the executive summary states. “When medical interventions pose unnecessary, disproportionate risks of harm, healthcare providers should refuse to offer them even when they are preferred, requested, or demanded by patients.”
In its research review,the HHS determined that evidence measuring the effects of gender-affirming care on psychological outcomes, quality of life, regret and long-term health is of “very low” quality. This conclusion ignores decades of research, as well as a recent survey of more than 90,000 transgender people in the United States that found an overwhelming majority report more life satisfaction after having transitioned. Access to gender-affirming care has been linked to lower odds of suicidality and depression in trans youth, while gender-affirming surgeries have been found to lower psychological distress for adults.
Even when analyzing research that the administration deemed low-bias, the HHS found “sparse” to no evidence of harm from gender-affirming care. What’s more, the report frequently found evidence demonstrating the benefits of gender-affirming care — though it ultimately downplays those findings as not significant.
Available research on puberty blockers found high satisfaction ratings and low rates of regret. A systematic review of hormone replacement therapy described improved gender dysphoria and body satisfaction. Another found that hormone treatment leads to improved mental health. Two before-and-after studies reported reduced treatment needs or lower levels of suicidality and self-harm after hormone treatment. When measuring safety outcomes of hormone treatment, side effects did not have a major impact on treatment and complications were limited.
Despite these findings, the Department of Health and Human Services advertised the report in a Thursday news release as one that “highlights a growing body of evidence pointing to significant risks” of gender-affirming care. At the White House briefing room Thursday, deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller touted the new report and attributed the idea of being transgender as part of a “cancerous communist woke culture” that is “destroying this country.”
There are side effects to many of the medications that transgender people — and cisgender people — take to receive gender-affirming care, as is the case with most medical treatments. These side effects, like the risk of decreased bone density when taking puberty blockers, are closely monitored and treated by doctors and communicated to patients.
LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations denounced the report as a political attack on transgender youth. Multiple groups said that the report’s endorsement of psychotherapy as a “noninvasive alternative” to puberty blockers and hormone treatment amounts to an endorsement of conversion therapy — a practice wherein mental health professionals try to change a youth’s sexual orientation or gender identity.
“It is already clear that this report is a willful distortion of the evidence intended to stoke fear about a field of safe and effective medicine that has existed for decades, in order to justify dangerous practices which amount to conversion therapy,” said Sinead Murano Kinney, health policy analyst at Advocates for Trans Equality.
The Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest LGBTQ+ rights organization, accused the HHS of producing a report that is attempting to lay the groundwork to replace medical care for trans and nonbinary people with conversion therapy.
“Trans people are who we are. We’re born this way. And we deserve to live our best lives and have a fair shot and equal opportunity at living a good life,” said Jay Brown, chief of staff at the Human Rights Campaign. “This report … lays the groundwork to push parents and doctors aside and allow politicians to subject our kids to the debunked practice of conversion therapy.”
No authors or contributors are named in the report or in its executive summary. The agency says these names are being initially withheld to “maintain the integrity of this process,” and states that chapters of the document were subject to peer review.
Less than a week after Yeshiva University agreed to recognize an LGBTQ+ student club as part of a legal settlement, university president Ari Berman apologized for the way the university conveyed the announcement and stressed that “pride” clubs still run counter to the values of the Modern Orthodox Jewish university, Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported. He emphasized that the newly approved club would function “in accordance with halacha,” or Jewish law.
“I deeply apologize to the members of our community—our students and parents, alumni and friends, faculty and Rabbis—for the way the news was rolled out,” Berman, a rabbi, wrote in an email to students Tuesday. “Instead of clarity, it sowed confusion. Even more egregiously, misleading ‘news’ articles said that Yeshiva had reversed its position, which is absolutely untrue.”
The university has been mired in a legal battle with its LGBTQ+ student group, the YU Pride Alliance, since 2021, when the group sued for official university recognition. Yeshiva said it wasn’t legally required to recognize the club because of Orthodoxy’s stance against same-sex relations. The two parties announced a settlement last week in which students will run an LGBTQ+ club called Hareni that will “operate in accordance with the approved guidelines of Yeshiva University’s senior rabbis,” according to a joint statement issued last Thursday.
LGBTQ+ students celebrated the settlement as a new milestone. But Berman framed the settlement as doubling down on an old proposal from 2022, when the university sought to create its own LGBTQ+ student club called Kol Yisrael Areivim. Plaintiffs rejected the plan at the time, on the grounds that the club wouldn’t be student-run. But Berman said Hareni was similarly created “to support students who are striving to live authentic, uncompromising” lives within the bounds of Jewish law, “as previously described.”
“The Yeshiva has always conveyed that what a Pride club represents is antithetical to the undergraduate program in which the traditional view of marriage and genders being determined at birth are transmitted,” Berman wrote in his message to students. “The Yeshiva never could and never would sanction such an undergraduate club and it is due to this that we entered litigation.”
As he sees it, “last week, the plaintiffs in the lawsuit against YU accepted to run Hareni, instead of what they were originally suing us for, moved to end the case, and the case has been dismissed.”
In the wake of federal and state bans on diversity, equity and inclusion, several colleges and universities are eliminating the option for students to live in culture-based housing starting next fall—a trend that could signal increased attacks on certain student resources that went largely untouched under previous state-level DEI bans.
The University of Iowa confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that it will be ceasing operations of three of its living-learning communities: All In, for LGBTQ students; Unidos, for Latino students; and Young, Gifted and Black, for Black students. North Carolina State University will also shut down two culture-based dorms—called Living and Learning Villages at NCSU—dedicated to Native American and Black students, as first reported in The Nubian Message, the college’s Black student-led newspaper.
In both cases, the institutions will no longer offer the residential communities starting next semester. Both NCSU and Iowa are retaining other learning communities focused on academic majors and other interests.
The cancellations come in the wake of President Donald Trump’s crusade against all things even tangentially related to diversity, equity and inclusion. A Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter from the Department of Education stated that federal law prohibits the use of race in relation to a variety of campus programs and activities, including housing, going beyond the restrictions set by most statewide anti-DEI legislation.
In the aftermath of that letter, many universities—including some private institutions and institutions in solidly blue states—began scrubbing words related to DEI from their websites and shuttering DEI offices. But only a handful of institutions have gotten rid of the housing communities, which have often been lauded for strengthening students’ sense of belonging on campus. (Belonging is associated with higher rates of retention and mental well-being, multiple studies have found.)
A spokesman for the University of Iowa did not say what led to the decision to close the three living-learning communities. Iowa passed legislation last year banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices on college campuses. The university also announced Thursday that it would be permanently shuttering its DEI office, which it had rearranged and renamed to the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Diversity as a result of last year’s legislation.
NCSU did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment but told The Nubian Message that the changes were “part of the university’s ongoing review of compliance with executive actions issued by the federal government and UNC System policy.”
Another institution, the University of Florida, has removed the option to sign up for any of its nonacademic learning communities for next semester, including those dedicated to Black, first-generation, international, LGBTQ+ and out-of-state students, plus one for students in the arts. According to The Alligator, the university’s student paper, the university also changed language on its housing website from describing the learning communities as “interest-based communities” to “academic-based communities.”
In an email to the campus community, the institution said the change was related to the university’s housing master plan.
“The University of Florida’s Housing & Residence Life is unwavering in our commitment to providing community-orientated facilities where residents are empowered to learn, innovate and succeed. As we enter a 10-year Housing Master Planning process, all programmatic offerings are being evaluated to ensure we continue to provide a premiere on-campus living experience,” the message read. “As a result, we are pausing all activities associated with non-academic Living Learning Communities.”
But some students have expressed concern that the elimination of the communities focused on identity may actually be related to Trump’s anti-DEI push or existing Florida anti-DEI legislation.
“Cancelling the activities of marginalized LLCs follows a long history of UF stripping protections from vulnerable students,” reads a petition calling on the university to reverse its decision. “It is clear that this latest attack on safe housing is only part of a larger plan to transform the UF campus into a space that is no longer safe for marginalized groups. LLCs will not be the last protection to be targeted.”
A Best Practice to Support Students
The Young, Gifted and Black learning community debuted in 2016 in response to a proposal by a group of students, The Daily Iowan, the University of Iowa’s student newspaper, reported at the time.
The university’s housing website says that students living in YGB “will be challenged to understand the various experiences among the African/Black diaspora, encouraged to learn and develop critical thinking skills outside the classroom, relate your passions to your academics and better Iowa’s Black Community through campus involvement.” Students who live on the floor are also required to take a course on African American culture.
Sandrah Nasimiyu, an Iowa alumna, lived in the community in the 2019–20 academic year—though, of course, her time there was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic. Her happiest memories in college took place in the residence hall, she told Inside Higher Ed, from debriefing with her floor mates after a long day of classes to a memorable game night when her friends tried, unsuccessfully, to teach her to play spades.
“I was already at a [predominantly white institution]. We live in Iowa—I had grown up in the suburbs and really wanted to have some form of community,” she said. “Where you put your head at night, where you’re going to spend the most time, you have to feel comfortable … when I stepped off that floor, I was in an environment I see all the time that wasn’t made for me.”
Nasimiyu is still friends with several people she met in the brief time she lived there. Sometimes, she recalled, Black students who didn’t live on YGB would tell her that they struggled to make Black friends on campus; Black people make up just 2.8 percent of the student body at Iowa.
LGBTQ+ and culture-based residence halls have come under fire from conservatives before; in 2023, the conservative campus group Young Americans for Freedom criticized Lavender Living Learning Community, the LGBTQ+ dorm at UF, for “segregating” students and “bombarding” them with leftism because its residents were encouraged to take a course on social justice. Right-wing news sources like Campus Reform and The Daily Caller, too, have discredited affinity housing as segregation.
But advocates for these spaces have long countered that residents of learning communities are rarely, if ever, required to be a certain race or identity. Jason Lynch, a professor of higher education at Appalachian State University and an expert in housing and residential life, said he saw firsthand that a number of non-Black students lived in the Black residential community when he worked in residential life at a previous institution.
Beyond that, though, he noted that the communities “are seen as a best practice, a high-impact practice … LLCs are a direct way to combat loneliness and isolation. We’re going to see a rise in mental health [concerns], especially for these minority communities” if these communities vanish.
Restricting LGBTQ+ Housing
At the same time that some campuses are doing away with LGBTQ+ affinity housing, others are overhauling inclusive housing in other ways. Florida State University recently came under fire for removing an option on its housing application that allows students to indicate that they would like to live in LGBTQ-friendly housing.
Unlike the learning communities, this option doesn’t place students in a particular dorm, but rather attempts to pair the student with someone who would be accepting and welcoming of an LGBTQ+ roommate, Marco Lofaso, an FSU student and member of the campus’s Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter, told Inside Higher Ed. LGBTQ+ housing has been available at FSU since 2021.
But the option was soon reinstated after student backlash—though the university never directly answered why it had been removed, telling the student newspaper, “Florida State University routinely reviews and refreshes campus information and messaging on a regular basis to ensure information is up to date and accurate. During this review, a previously used question was omitted from the returning student housing application for the 2025–26 academic year. A revised version of the question will be included in the new student housing application when it is released Feb. 27.”
FSU did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment.
The state of Utah also recently passed a law targeting trans students that requires any students who live in gender-segregated housing to live in the housing that aligns with their “biological sex.” However, the law doesn’t prevent institutions from offering gender-neutral housing.
At least one institution has updated its housing policies to comply with the law, which passed in February. In an emailed statement, a spokesman for Utah State University said that the institution “strives to create a welcoming environment where all students who live on campus are comfortable so they can focus on succeeding in their studies. Consistent with the new law, USU’s sex-segregated housing will be assigned based on an individual’s biological sex at birth.”
The spokesman added that the university will continue to provide gender-inclusive housing “that meet the needs of all residents and in a manner that treats everyone with dignity and respect.” He did not respond to a question about how the university will determine residents’ biological sexes.
HOUSTON, Texas, March 5, 2025 — The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of an LGBTQ+ student organization to block a new policy from the Texas A&M University System that bans drag performances on its 11 public campuses — a clear violation of the First Amendment.
FIRE is asking a court in the Southern District of Texas to halt Texas A&M officials from enforcing the drag ban, abruptly adopted on Friday afternoon. The lawsuit is on behalf of the Queer Empowerment Council, a coalition of student organizations at Texas A&M University-College Station and the organizers of the fifth annual “Draggieland” event that was scheduled to be held on campus on March 27.
“We refuse to let Texas A&M dictate which voices belong on campus,” said the Queer Empowerment Council. “Drag is self-expression, drag is discovery, drag is empowerment, and no amount of censorship will silence us.”
Texas A&M students first held “Draggieland” (a portmanteau of “Drag” and “Aggieland,” a nickname for Texas A&M) at the campus theatre complex in 2020, and the event has been held on campus annually ever since. But last Friday, the Board of Regents suddenly voted to ban drag events entirely across all 11 Texas A&M campuses.
“The board finds that it is inconsistent with the system’s mission and core values of its universities, including the value of respect for others, to allow special event venues of the universities to be used for drag shows,” the board’s resolution reads. The regents also claimed that drag performances are “offensive” and “likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women.”
“Public universities can’t shut down student expression simply because the administration doesn’t like the ‘ideology’ or finds the expression ‘demeaning,’” said FIRE attorney Adam Steinbaugh. “That’s true not only of drag performances, but also religion, COVID, race, politics, and countless other topics where campus officials are too often eager to silence dissent.”
The regents’ attempts to justify the drag ban as anything other than illegal viewpoint discrimination are feeble. The board admits they want to ban drag on campus because they find it “demeans women,” “promotes gender ideology,” or runs contrary to their “values”—- but the First Amendment squarely protects speech that offends and even angers others. And in all cases, it prevents campus officials from silencing speech because they disagree with the “ideology.” As a taxpayer-funded university system, Texas A&M campuses cannot treat some student events differently simply because they dislike the view being expressed.
“Even putting on an on-campus production of Shakespeare or Mrs. Doubtfire, or taking part in powderpuff, could be banned at A&M if some hostile administrator thinks they ‘promote gender ideology,’” said FIRE senior attorney JT Morris. “But if the First Amendment means anything, it’s that the government can’t silence ideologies they don’t like — real or perceived.”
Title IX’s prohibition on creating a “hostile environment” also does not give public universities the ability to run around the First Amendment. FIRE has long seen efforts to suppress speech on the basis that it might contribute to a “hostile environment” because someone finds it offensive, but if speech can be suppressed because someone believes it is offensive, no speech is safe. The First Amendment does not permit public universities to suppress speech because someone thinks it is inappropriate.
In order to fit the definition of harassment the Supreme Court has established, speech must be “objectively offensive” AND “severe” AND “pervasive.” A once-a-year drag show in an enclosed theatre that requires a ticket to enter doesn’t even come close to satisfying those strict conditions.
“If other students dislike or disagree with Draggieland, the solution is simple: don’t go,” said FIRE attorney Jeff Zeman. “Or they could organize a protest, as students opposing drag have in the past. The First Amendment protects drag and the ability to criticize drag — and it forbids the government silencing the side it disagrees with.”
Finally, the regents’ motion notes that “there are alternative locations for such events off-campus.” But that violates the First Amendment, too. The government cannot censor speech in places the First Amendment protects it, just because a speaker might express themselves elsewhere. “Draggieland” highlights why that principle is so vital: if a student group can’t reach their campus community with their message, then their message can’t fulfill its purpose.
In the face of unconstitutional censorship, Draggieland organizers have remained unbowed. They have announced to supporters that they will hold an on-campus “Day of Drag” protest on Thursday and that they are committed to holding the event even if forced off-campus.
“We are committed to ensuring that our voices are heard, and that Draggieland will go on, no matter the obstacles we face,” the Queer Empowerment Council announced.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and sustaining the individual rights of all Americans to free speech and free thought—the most essential qualities of liberty. FIRE recognizes that colleges and universities play a vital role in preserving free thought within a free society. To this end, we place a special emphasis on defending the individual rights of students and faculty members on our nation’s campuses, including freedom of speech, freedom of association, due process, legal equality, religious liberty, and sanctity of conscience.
CONTACT:
Alex Griswold, Communications Campaign Manager, FIRE: 215-717-3473; media@thefire.org
SALT LAKE CITY — Nineteen-year-old Nevaeh Parker spent the fall semester at the University of Utah trying to figure out how to lead a student group that had been undercut overnight by matters far beyond student control.
Parker, the president of the Black Student Union, feared that a new Utah law banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at public colleges had sent a message to students from historically marginalized groups that they aren’t valued on campus. So this spring, while juggling 18 credit hours, an internship, a role in student government and waiting tables at a local cafe, she is doing everything in her power to change that message.
Because the university cut off support for the BSU — as well as groups for Asian American and for Pacific Islander students — Parker is organizing the BSU’s monthly meetings on a bare-bones budget that comes from student government funding for hundreds of clubs. She often drives to pick up the meeting’s pizza to avoid wasting those precious dollars on delivery fees. And she’s helping organize large community events that can help Black, Asian and Latino students build relationships with each other and connect with people working in Salt Lake City for mentorship and professional networking opportunities.
Nineteen-year-old University of Utah student Nevaeh Parker is working hard to keep the Black Student Union going after the organization lost financial support. Credit: Image provided by Duncan Allen
“Sometimes that means I’m sacrificing my grades, my personal time, my family,” Parker, a sophomore, said. “It makes it harder to succeed and achieve the things I want to achieve.”
But she’s dedicated to keeping the BSU going because it means so much to her fellow Black students. She said several of her peers have told her they don’t feel they have a place on campus and are considering transferring or dropping out.
Utah’s law arose from a conservative view that DEI initiatives promote different treatment of students based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. House Bill 261, known as “Equal Opportunity Initiatives,” which took effect last July, broadly banished DEI efforts and prohibited institutions or their representatives speaking about related topics at public colleges and government agencies. Violators risk losing state funding.
Now President Donald Trump has set out to squelch DEI work across the federal government and in schools, colleges and businesses everywhere, through DEI-related executive orders and a recent “Dear Colleague” letter. As more states decide to banish DEI, Utah’s campus may represent what’s to come nationwide.
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Because of the new state law, the university last year closed the Black Cultural Center, the Center for Equity and Student Belonging, the LGBT Resource Center and the Women’s Resource Center – in addition to making funding cuts to the student affinity groups.
In place of these centers, the university opened a new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement, to offer programming for education, celebration and awareness of different identity and cultural groups, and a new Center for Student Access and Resources, to offer practical support services like counseling to all students, regardless of identity.
For many students, the changes may have gone unnoticed. Utah’s undergraduate population is about 63 percent white. Black students are about 1 percent, Asian students about 8 percent and Hispanic students about 14 percent of the student body. Gender identity and sexuality among students is not tracked.
For others, however, the university’s racial composition makes the support of the centers that were eliminated that much more significant.
In response to a new state law that broadly banned diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, the University of Utah closed its Center for Equity and Student Belonging, the Black Cultural Center, the Women’s Resource Center and the LGBT Resource Center. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report
Some — like Parker — have worked to replace what was lost. For example, a group of queer and transgender students formed a student-run Pride Center, with support from the local Utah Pride Center. A few days a week, they set up camp in a study room in the library. They bring in pride flags, informational fliers and rainbow stickers to distribute around the room, and sit at a big table in case other students come looking for a space to study or spend time with friends.
Lori McDonald, the university’s vice president of student affairs, said so far, her staff has not seen as many students spending time in the two new centers as they did when that space was the Women’s Resource Center and the LGBT Resource Center, for example.
“I still hear from students who are grieving the loss of the centers that they felt such ownership of and comfort with,” McDonald said. “I expected that there would still be frustration with the situation, but yet still carrying on and finding new things.”
One of the Utah bill’s co-sponsors was Katy Hall, a Republican state representative. In an email, she said she wanted to ensure that support services were available to all students and that barriers to academic success were removed.
“My aim was to take the politics out of it and move forward with helping students and Utahns to focus on equal treatment under the law for all,” Hall said. “Long term, I hope that students who benefitted from these centers in the past know that the expectation is that they will still be able to receive services and support that they need.”
The law allows Utah colleges to operate cultural centers, so long as they offer only “cultural education, celebration, engagement, and awareness to provide opportunities for all students to learn with and from one another,” according to guidance from the Utah System of Higher Education.
Given the anti-DEI orders coming from the White House and the mandate from the Department of Education earlier this month calling for the elimination of any racial preferences, McDonald said, “This does seem to be a time that higher education will receive more direction on what can and cannot be done.”
But because the University of Utah has already had to make so many changes, she thinks that the university will be able to carry on with the centers and programs it now offers for all students.
Research has shown that a sense of belonging at college contributes to improved engagement in class and campus activities and to retaining students until they graduate.
“When we take away critical supports that we know have been so instrumental in student engagement and retention, we are not delivering on our promise to ensure student success,” said Royel M. Johnson, director of the national assessment of collegiate campus climates at the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center.
Creating an equitable and inclusive environment requires recognizing that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to supporting students, said Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education. A student who grew up poor may not have had the same opportunities in preparing for college as a student from a wealthy or middle-class family. Students from some minority groups or those who are the first in their family to go to college may not understand how to get the support they need.
“This should not be a situation where our students arrive on campus and are expected to sink or swim,” she said.
Student Andy Whipple wears a beaded bracelet made at a “Fab Friday” event hosted by the LGBT Resource Center at the University of Utah. The LGBT Resource Center was closed recently to comply with a new state law that limits diversity, equity and inclusion work. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report
Kirstin Maanum is the director of the new Center for Student Access and Resources; it administers scholarships and guidance previously offered by the now-closed centers. She formerly served as the director of the Women’s Resource Center.
“Students have worked really hard to figure out where their place is and try to get connected,” Maanum said. “It’s on us to be telling students what we offer and even in some cases, what we don’t, and connecting them to places that do offer what they’re looking for.”
That has been difficult, she said, because the changeover happened so quickly, even though some staffers from the closed centers were reassigned to the new centers. (Others were reassigned elsewhere.)
“It was a heavy lift,” Maanum said. “We didn’t really get a chance to pause until this fall. We did a retreat at the end of October and it was the first time I felt like we were able to really reflect on how things were going and essentially do some grief work and team building.”
Before the new state law, the cultural, social and political activities of various student affinity groups used to be financed by the university — up to $11,000 per group per year — but that money was eliminated because it came from the Center for Equity and Student Belonging, which closed. The groups could have retained some financial support from the university if they agreed to avoid speaking about certain topics considered political and to explicitly welcome all students, not just those who shared their race, ethnicity or other personal identity characteristics, according to McDonald. Otherwise, the student groups are left to fundraise and petition the student government for funding alongside hundreds of other clubs.
Parker said the restrictions on speech felt impossible for the BSU, which often discusses racism and the way bias and discrimination affect students. She said, “Those things are not political, those things are real, and they impact the way students are able to perform on campus.”
She added: “I feel as though me living in this black body automatically makes myself and my existence here political, I feel like it makes my existence here debatable and questioned. I feel like every single day I’m having to prove myself extra.”
In October, she and other leaders of the Black Student Union decided to forgo being sponsored by the university, which had enabled traditional activities such as roller skating nights, a Jollof rice cook-off (which was a chance to engage with different cultures, students said) and speaker forums.
Alex Tokita, a senior who is the president of the Asian American Student Association, said his group did the same. To maintain their relationship with the university by complying with the law, Tokita said, was “bonkers.”
Alex Tokita, a senior at the University of Utah, is the president of the Asian American Student Association. The organization chose to forgo university sponsorship because it did not want to comply with a new state law that restricts speech on certain topics. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report
Tokita said it doesn’t make sense for the university to host events in observation of historical figures and moments that represent the struggle of marginalized people without being able to discuss things like racial privilege or implicit bias.
“It’s frustrating to me that we can have an MLK Jr. Day, but we can’t talk about implicit bias,” Tokita said. “We can’t talk about critical race theory, bias, implicit bias.”
As a student, Tokita can use these words and discuss these concepts. But he couldn’t if he were speaking on behalf of a university-sponsored organization.
LeiLoni Allan-McLaughlin, of the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement, said that some students believe they must comply with the law even if they are not representing the university or participating in sponsored groups.
“We’ve been having to continually inform them, ‘Yes, you can usethose words. We cannot,’” Allan-McLaughlin said. “That’s been a roadblock for our office and for the students, because these are things that they’re studying so they need to use those words in their research, but also to advocate for each other and themselves.”
Last fall, Allan-McLaughlin’s center hosted an event around the time of National Coming Out Day, in October, with a screening of “Paris Is Burning,” a film about trans women and drag queens in New York City in the 1980s. Afterward, two staff members led a discussion with the students who attended. They prefaced the discussion with a disclaimer, saying that they were not speaking on behalf of the university.
Center staffers also set up an interactive exhibit in honor of National Coming Out Day, where students could write their experiences on colorful notecards and pin them on a bulletin board; created an altar for students to observe Día de los Muertos, in early November, and held an event to celebrate indigenous art. So far this semester, the center has hosted several events in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month, including an educational panel, a march and a pop-up library event.
Such events may add value to the campus experience overall, but students from groups that aren’t well represented on campus argue that those events do not make up for the loss of dedicated spaces to spend time with other students of similar backgrounds.
Sophomore Juniper Nilsson looks at a National Coming Out Day exhibit in the student union at the University of Utah. The exhibit was set up by the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement. Credit: Olivia Sanchez/The Hechinger Report
For Taylor White, a recent graduate with a degree in psychology, connecting with fellow Black students through BSU events was, “honestly, the biggest relief of my life.” At the Black Cultural Center, she said, students could talk about what it was like to be the only Black person in their classes or to be Black in other predominantly white spaces. She said without the support of other Black students, she’s not sure she would have been able to finish her degree.
Nnenna Eke-Ukoh, a 2024 graduate who is now pursuing a master’s in higher educational leadership at nearby Weber State University, said it feels like the new Center for Community and Cultural Engagement at her alma mater is “lumping all the people of color together.”
“We’re not all the same,” Eke-Ukoh said, “and we have all different struggles, and so it’s not going to be helpful.”
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The U.S. Supreme Court announced Friday it will hear Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case that would determine whether school districts violate parents’ First Amendment religious rights when they don’t provide notice or a way to opt children out of curriculum related to gender and sexuality.
The case was brought against Maryland’s Montgomery County Board of Education by a group of Christian and Muslim parents in reaction to a pre-K-5 LGBTQ+-inclusive language arts curriculum. With more than 159,000 students and 211 schools, Montgomery County Public Schools is Maryland’s largest school district.
Though the school board initially offered parents a way to opt their children out of the curriculum, it later walked that policy back because “individual schools could not accommodate the growing number of opt out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.” The board also attributed the reversal to the “unworkable burdens” that high opt-out volumes put on educators.
In their Sept. 12 petition to the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs argued that parents’ ability to raise their children in accordance with their beliefs is particularly important for the pre-K-5 age group and particularly those with special needs “who are highly impressionable and instinctively trusting of authority figures like teachers.”
The court is expected to hear the case in the spring.
