University administrators changed access to resources for the LGBTQ+ community in early March, removing several pages and replacing them with student-led efforts.
Young Democratic Socialists of America at Arizona State University and Students for Justice in Palestine posted screenshots of the altered web pages on March 5. The changes included the removal of trans-specific and LGBTQ+ wellness resources, as well as access to changing an individual's legal name and gender within the University database.
Bryce Askew, the chair of YDSA and a senior studying chemical engineering, said the organization discovered the changes when a student in the Rainbow Coalition posted about the missing resources in a Discord server.
Askew said the community response was one of shock among "people who maybe haven't been as tuned into how ASU behaves." While students expressed their frustration, the University administration argued the changes were not due to external factors — such as the Trump administration's approach toward dismantling diversity, equity and inclusion resources.
Over 1,000 people have emailed the University through an Action Network petition page organized by YDSA.
READ MORE: Breaking: ASU changes LGBTQ+ resources on University webpages
Joanne Vogel, the vice president of Student Services, said the change was not part of an initiative to comply with new federal DEI policies but rather a way to condense and reorganize the resources they had.
"We had a lot of things that were scattered all over, so we did a full review and looked at where we had different resources and put them in a place that they were all centralized," she said.
Askew said they do not believe the changes would have been made without the influence from new federal policy.
"They're just covering themselves because they don't want to get backlash for preemptively complying with these orders, or they don't want to admit that they were ordered to do it," Askew said.
Vogel said students might have been misinformed about what these changes were for. She said the University has not had to comply with Trump's new DEI requirements because ASU tends to not use DEI-specific terminology and does not limit who is accepted into the University so long as they meet qualifications, such as a minimum GPA requirement.
READ MORE: The DEI debate: Campus inclusion or a step too far?
"Sometimes the president (Michael Crow) has said DEI is in our DNA," Vogel said. "We just don't talk about it that way."
Robert Dotson, the dean of students on the Downtown Phoenix campus, said the same.
"I do have colleagues at other institutions, at other universities, that are doing away with things that are DEI-related," he said. "That is not what I have found, nor what I have seen here."
ASU is currently one of many universities across the country under federal DEI investigations for alleged racial discrimination and civil rights violations. The University was also involved in a lawsuit over its mandated DEI training programs last year.
READ MORE: Goldwater Institute's lawsuit involving ASU could threaten DEI training in Arizona
Despite this, Vogel said the University still aims to prioritize its students.
"Our support, our services, our resources, our care — and since we're talking specifically about the LGBTQ+ community — that remains constant and unchanged," she said.
Vogel and Dotson both acknowledged that students may have been concerned about receiving adequate help, as the University website with LGBTQ+ resources now directs them to the Rainbow Coalition, which is student-led.
"Student organizations need to be advised, if you will, by a faculty member," Dotson said. "But even if it's a faculty-advised student organization, the resources that are accessible by students are going to be the same."
Vogel also said Student Services staff advise and support student organizations, and those groups can then network with other students, allowing for more outreach.
Athena Heineman and Mark Itule, two University students, disagreed that the changes were benevolent.
"It seems like they're taking our rights away," Heineman, a junior studying interdisciplinary studies, said.
Itule, a junior studying museum studies, said similar changes at Maricopa Community Colleges hurt LGBTQ+ students who may not be able to find resources elsewhere in their communities.
"Colleges usually are supposed to be that beacon to assist and help people express and find themselves," Itule said. "To restrict that is just messed up."
Heineman said they feel the changes amounted to discrimination against LGBTQ+ students.
"They're telling people who are a part of that community to go back in the closet instead of being ourselves," they said.
Edited by George Headley, Abigail Beck, Tiya Talwar, Alexis Heichman and Natalia Jarrett.
Reach the reporters at coyer1@asu.edu and pkfung@asu.edu and follow @carstenoyer and @FungPippa on X.
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Pippa is a sophomore studying journalism and mass communication with minors in political science and German. This is her third semester with The State Press. She has also worked at Blaze Radio and the Los Alamos National Lab.
Carsten is a freshman studying journalism and mass communication. This is his first semester with The State Press. He also worked as his high school's newspaper editor-in-chief.
