{"id":606,"date":"2026-07-27T18:06:47","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/?page_id=606"},"modified":"2026-07-27T18:06:47","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T18:06:47","slug":"quiet-campuses-586-594-606","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/?page_id=606","title":{"rendered":"CENSORED"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Federal Anti-DEI Legislation Affects Student Publications<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Story and Header Photo by: Poojasai Kona<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

University of Alabama senior Hannah Grace Mayfield \u201cnever thought censorship could happen\u201d to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayfield first got involved with Alice once she got on campus as a freshman, where she would go on to be a contributing photographer for two years, before being appointed the magazine\u2019s photo editor the semester before it got shut down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEverybody was crying,\u201d Mayfield said. \u201cIt was terrible. It took me completely by surprise because I felt like everything we were doing was completely fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sophomore Mack Rudder, who is The Crimson White\u2019s newspaper Assistant Sports Editor, which is the university\u2019s student newspaper, and is a former design contributor for Alice,initially didn\u2019t believe the university was serious behind its intentions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought it was a joke,\u201d Rudder said. \u201cThe day before we were in the middle of planning our second edition for spring. I got my assignments, starting working on it, but the next day, they were like Alice does not exist anymore. I don\u2019t think anybody really saw it coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of The University of Alabama\u2019s student magazines, Alice, which focused on women\u2019s issues, and Nineteen Fifty-Six, which focused on Black student culture, were suspended by UA in December 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The university cited a non-binding* memo issued by U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. The magazines\u2019 staffs were told by the university that because the magazines targeted specific audiences of race and gender, the university had believed they were what Bondi called \u201cunlawful proxies\u201d for discrimination. When hearing about the suspension of both magazines, members of Masthead\u2019s board of directors, like Melissa Brown, called an emergency meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact that the University interpreted a federal memo as justification for shutting these student magazines down concerned us,\u201d Brown said, who currently works at the Tennessee bureau chief at Chalkbeat. \u201cTo shutter these magazines felt incredibly short-sighted by the University, and most of all, we were concerned about the students who had dedicated so much time to these magazines as they were being ripped from them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Masthead is a nonprofit organization that operates independently from the University. Established in 2020, Masthead sought to support student journalists at a variety of media outlets at UA. For Brown, who had spent time at The Crimson White \u2014 UA\u2019s student newspaper \u2014  felt a \u201csadness for these students\u201d when hearing about the magazines\u2019 suspensions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese students are real journalists,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe were so impressed by the work they had been doing running and creating diverse publications. For me, I know how important my student media experience was to me and to my career still today, and I really hated that those students were going to lose that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having sadness turn to indignation and determination for Brown and the rest of Masthead, discussions immediately pivoted to how their resources could be used to try and \u201cdo anything to help preserve the ability for these students to practice journalism at the university.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCo-founder of Masthead, Victor Luckerson, decided to launch a pretty ambitious fundraiser with the idea to see if there was an appetite to help fund independent publications for the spring semester,\u201d Brown said. \u201cPeople were very concerned about the decision by the University, and I was pleasantly surprised to see how much support it got so quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Masthead would go on to raise nearly $30,000 within a few weeks, allowing it to move forward and work with the students who had previously worked at Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six by creating new, independent brands and magazines that served as the second iteration of both respective magazines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hence, the birth of Selene and Sixty-Three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Serving as the photo editor for Selene, Mayfield recounted the issues the editorial board faced getting the new magazine running.It was a very emotional time for everyone. It was so difficult to get anything done as our resources were decentralized,\u201d Mayfield said. \u201cWe could not use our UA email addresses. We couldn\u2019t use Microsoft Word through our UA emails. It\u2019s insane how much UA does that you don\u2019t realize.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A federal district court reached a preliminary decision in May of 2026, in the case of Pointer v. Phelps, where eight students sued The University of Alabama, alleging the University had violated the First Amendment when it closed the two student-run magazines. The federal court ruled the University did not violate the First Amendment. With Alabama being \u201cthe birthplace of college press freedom,\u201d Jonathan Gaston-Falk, the staff attorney of the Student Press Law Center, said anti-DEI directives from the federal government is alarming, as they pose a threat to student press freedom nationwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt gives universities a dangerous route to close publications whose missions administrators might dislike,\u201d Gaston-Falk said. \u201cOur worry is if other colleges around the country look at federal directives and think that they can do the same thing on their own campuses, copycats might crop up all over the country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Brown, she worries about the about the chilling effect some of this legislation is having on young student journalists who are still finding their way in journalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy main concern as a professional journalists is students are being misinformed about their own rights under this legislation and the kind of journalism they can do on college campuses,\u201d Brown said. \u201cMy hope is that there are enough people and professionals who can and are willing to openly support student journalists, so that they feel emboldened to practice responsible and rigorous reporting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now editor-in-chief of Druid, the University\u2019s new lifestyle magazine focused on Tuscaloosa and Southern culture, Mayfield hopes to continue doing what her magazine experience taught her best \u2014 giving students a voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want others to realize that we\u2019re not trying to replace them and we\u2019re not trying to erase them,\u201d Mayfield said. \u201cEveryone\u2019s who\u2019s involved with Druid saw the tears and the horror at what happened. We want to get back to giving students and Tuscaloosa residents a voice to talk about cool things that they\u2019re doing and talk about the hard stuff. But ultimately, just to tell their stories.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Editor\u2019s Note: While the memo is \u201cnon-binding\u201d in theory, schools can face repercussions for not adhering to these directives, including a loss of federal funding. In a Dec. 1, 2025 statement, UA stated it could not continue to fund the magazines \u201cunder the compliance landscape,\u201d but added the students\u2019 First Amendment Rights \u201cremain fully intact\u201d and the University will \u201cnever restrict [its] students\u2019 freedom of expression.\u201d UA stated it will \u201ccontinue to fund the new publication [Druid] and continue funding other student media.\u201d<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federal Anti-DEI Legislation Affects Student Publications Story and Header Photo by: Poojasai Kona University of Alabama senior Hannah Grace Mayfield \u201cnever thought censorship could happen\u201d to her. Mayfield first got involved with Alice once she got on campus as a freshman, where she would go on to be a contributing photographer for two years, before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-606","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=606"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609,"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/606\/revisions\/609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjw.ua.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}