The University of Cincinnati's African American Cultural and Resource Center (AACRC) is no longer in existence. Following the signing of the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, also known as Senate Bill 1, which bans universities from supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), UC announced that it would close its identity centers serving Black students, women, and LGBTQ+ students before the start of the fall semester.
The DEI ban was strongly opposed by students and a trustee on UC's Board, who criticized Senate Bill 1 and other recently passed state legislation, saying it leveraged Ohio's education funding to shoehorn a conservative political ideology onto college campuses.
Students and faculty responded by organizing several large protests in the spring, but by late June, UC's leadership agreed to change its policies on diversity to fall in line with the new law.
The shuttering of the AACRC, which opened its doors in 1991 after a decades-long push by UC's Black student organizations, sent shockwaves through the university's Black community, prompting current students and the alumni who helped create the center to take action.
Ife Oshunniyi, a fourth-year student and chair of the United Black Student Association (UBSA) at UC, says despite the name change and loss of financial and personnel support, Black students are still keeping the center's traditions alive.
UC's Tyehimba Black Graduation Celebration was moved to a site just off-campus earlier this year, and a welcome celebration for incoming Black students before the start of the fall semester was organized entirely by current students without the assistance of UC staff. Those staff members have been assigned to different roles within Student Affairs, where they have to observe the work of Black organizations from a distance.
"A lot of the staff are being retained in that building," Oshunniyi told WVXU. "I truly believe they will be there to encourage us."
Without full university support, UC's Black student organizations are taking things one step at a time as they work to recreate the AACRC's annual events and traditions from scratch. They won't be doing it entirely alone.
'We're going to support them'
Earlier this year, a group of Black UC alumni, some of whom helped launch the AACRC in the late '80s and early '90s, created the to independently fund programs once housed under the AACRC, like its mentorship programs, student choir, and educational and cultural events.
Byron Stallworth, the head of what was known as the United Black Association (UBA) at UC in 1991, says the new foundation will let current students take charge with the backing of those who came before them.
"We'll be supporting financially as an independent 501(c)(3) going forward," Stallworth said. "Every time they decide to do a program and they need money to help pull it off, for it to feel professional, we're going to support them."
Funded by donations, The Cincy Cultural Resource Center Foundation plans to revive the AACRC's long-standing programs and is considering opening a new off-campus location for the center. While Black student organizations can still host events inside UC's campus buildings like any other student organization, some alumni say an independent location may be needed as long as universities remain within the crosshairs of politicians in Ohio and D.C.
"What became obvious is that in the current political climate, there needed to be a change that really moved from public to private support and funding for valuable programs and valuable services that the current political climate on the state of Ohio has turned its back on," Harlan Jackson, one of the foundations leaders and former President of the UBA at UC in the late '80s, said.
A 'reflection of the political state of our country'
Other alumni say the current political climate makes the center's mission more necessary than ever. The AACRC was established not only to serve as a home base for UC's Black students but to highlight the history of segregation and racial tension in Cincinnati and at the university.
The center has honored figures like Georgia Elizabeth Beasley, one of the first Black students to graduate from UC in 1925, and was among the first people to walk through the AACRC's doors when it first opened. Beasley, like other Black students attending UC at the time, was barred from campus groups, certain campus facilities, including on-campus dorms, and had to walk separately from white students during graduation. Despite the racial barriers, Beasley went on to earn a master's degree from Columbia University and returned to teach in Cincinnati.
While the University of Cincinnati's administration says it will preserve and catalog documents and artifacts from the AACRC and other student identity centers, alumni like 2017 graduate Stephen Mosby worry that UC's and this country's difficult history will be swept under the rug.
"The reason why the center was created was for situations like this, oddly enough," Mosby told WVXU.
Mosby argues that Ohio's Senate Bill 1 and continued political pressure on universities by the Trump administration are designed to quell student voices and reverse progress made by Black students over the decades. Though he says he understands the changes were mandated by state law, he would've liked to see the UC administration show more respect for the AACRC's history and impact on the education of marginalized students. He says UC once proudly promoted its diverse student population, but was quick to drop its support when things became challenging.
"Knowing that was kind of the response that the university wanted to take, despite making their name at the time off of the diversity spikes they were seeing in enrollment, I thought that was a little alarming," Mosby said.
Still, Oshunniyi from the USBA says she's not blaming UC President Neville Pinto and the university's administration entirely. Universities across Ohio and around the country also have shut down programs aimed at improving outcomes for minority students. Oshunniyi says she's directing her energy toward strengthening the USBA and other student organizations to weather whatever comes next.
"We can be mad and get mad at UC, but it's happening at every single university," she said. "This is not an issue with Pinto. This is a reflection of the political state in this country."
USBA still plans to call UC's Cultural Center home for now. While some things have been removed, Oshunniyi says the UC Black community can't be forced out.
"While they may be taking these letters down, this building is still here. And this space is still ours if we want it to be ours. So, we want people to still come in here and to take up the space because at the end of the day, we are a community more than we're a building," she said.
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