University of Missouri administrators’ decision to end direct university funding for student organizations representing minority groups drew fierce backlash Monday night, with group leaders warning the change could devastate programs that help students find community and support on campus.
“What the university wants from us is to fizzle out,” Asher McFerran, vice president of LGBTQ+ student group Queer Liberation Front, told a meeting of hundreds of students Monday evening. “What they have been doing is taking away our funding, taking away our platforms and taking away our voices.”
McFerran told attendees to “not back down.”
“We are not going to let the university lead us into the darkness,” McFerran said.
The university is changing the groups’ status to comply with federal guidance on diversity, equity and inclusion, Christopher Ave, the university’s spokesman, told The Independent. He pointed to a July 29 memo from the U.S. Department of Justice with “non-binding suggestions” for entities receiving federal dollars. He is not aware of any direct communication between federal officials warning the university of this memo.
“As a public institution, failure to follow federal law will risk forfeiture of significant federal funds that we receive to support student financial aid, research and other university programs,” Ave wrote.
Administrators met privately with organizations’ leaders and advisors in recent days to inform them of the change.
The university has acknowledged the demotion of five student groups, but there may be more. Filling in the Space, which is part of the Missouri Students Association, learned Monday that it would also lose the direct funding it receives as an auxiliary organization of the students association.
“Because on our website, it says ‘minority students,’ we gotta go,” Trinity Shields, Filling in the Space’s executive director, said during Monday’s town hall meeting.
Beginning in the fall, identity-based organizations that currently receive direct funding from the university will join over 600 groups as recognized student organizations, which share a funding pool.
Leaders with the Legion of Black Collegians and the Association of Latino American Students said they would not be able to continue their programming under those budget limitations.
“At the end of the day, we are all competing for the same scraps,” Karina Franquiz, president of the Association of Latino American Students, said. “And that is the issue at hand here.”
Umbrella organizations like ALAS receive tens of thousands of dollars in a lump sum at the beginning of the school year. The new categorization will require them to apply for funds, with a cap far below their current operating expenses.
The Legion of Black Collegians will also lose its status as an official student government that it has held since 1969.
“It makes me angry and worried about the future,” said Desmond Jones, the group’s vice president. “What are the kids who look like me… what are they going to do in the future and how are they going to find community here in the organization that made this sustainable.”
To him, the decision to strip the Legion of Black Collegians of its special status is part of a broader pattern, including the university’s 2024 demand that the group change the name of its “Welcome Black BBQ.”
That year, Mizzou also cut race-based scholarships and dissolved the department responsible for diversity, equity and inclusion on campus.
“It’s things like this that make you wonder why you stayed (at the university) because the things that made it home for you no longer exist,” Jones said.
The town hall repeatedly invoked Concerned Student 1950, the 2015 protest movement that drew national attention to racism on campus, organized a sweeping list of demands and helped force the resignation of then-University of Missouri system President Tim Wolfe after weeks of escalating demonstrations.
Matt Schacht, a filmmaker in Columbia who also teaches in Mizzou’s journalism school as an adjunct professor, was on campus during past protests. He told students that “the way you win this is by affecting money.”
“The work is worth it,” he said. “Because you’re building on something for the next generation.”
The organizations represented Monday said they had not yet settled on their next steps and declined to comment on speculation about possible litigation.
“We are not done right now,” said Amaya Morgan, president of the Legion of Black Collegians. “We will keep fighting.”
This story was originally published by the Missouri Independent.
