LSU Doing Work - DEI Related

Why is the "African American cultural center" still open?

Really, the women center should probably be closed too, but part of me wants the women center to remain open just so there can be some entertaining controversy about whether "transgender women" can be allowed in the women center.

I support DEI. Deport Every Illegal

lol. Baby steps

In July, LSU announced a reorganization effort, eliminating 25 jobs total and consolidating positions at minority student centers under the LSU Office of Student Affairs.

The African American Cultural Center and the Women’s Center remain open, but they are now operated by Student Affairs, said Meg Sunstrom, LSU chief communications officer. The Office of Engagement, Civil Rights and Title IX used to run the centers.

However, not all cultural centers are still open. Abbi Rocha Laymoun, LSU’s director of public relations, said that “the LGBTQ+ Center has closed, and the space will be repurposed for academic use.”

The space that used to be the Intercultural Center in the Student Union is now LSU Cares.

Sunstrom said all students and organizations can use the Women’s Center and AACC.

“The physical buildings have not changed and the resources available to students have not changed. They’ve just been put under student affairs,” Sunstrom said.

Other changes include firing Todd Manuel, former-vice president of the LSU Office of Engagement, Civil Rights and Title IX, and cutting seven other staff members from the office to comply with recent Department of Education directives to eliminate Diversity, Equity and Inclusion from higher education, according to Sunstrom.

“We are operating under LSU policy and U.S. Department of Education directives that don’t allow us to consider demographics in our programs or activities,” Sunstrom said. “That’s part of the reason [why the centers] are now open to all registered student organizations. That gets us in compliance with the law.”

LSU also dropped “engagement” from the title of the office, and now it is just Office of Civil Rights and Title IX.

LSU also eliminated other positions that were not due to the directive. The Office of Marketing and Communications received major cuts, laying off 16 writers, videographers and other staff members.

While Sunstrom said that student workers were made aware of the restructuring efforts in advance, Nia Laugand, an August 2026 graduate and former front desk employee at the Intercultural Center and Women’s Center, said she wasn’t made aware of the changes until Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Brandon Common emailed her.

“I had a key, and I kept coming into work,” Laugand said. “When I was working over the summer, my boss was just gone one day. I didn’t hear a thing.”

Aiyana Lockley, a political science senior and president of the NAACP at LSU, said that NAACP’s vice-president, Brooklyn Thompson, who is also former vice president of programming for the AACC, wasn’t notified about the reorganization either.

“She received a text message from her boss saying they were fired, and that the AACC ambassadors are no longer under them,” Lockley said.

Laugand said that the centers were already open to all students but noted that not all students were recognized or knew about the spaces.

“I’m glad that it’s open to all, but I hope that the purpose and the who and why these centers were created for don’t lose that safe space,” Laugand said.

Lockley said that the AACC provided a sense of belonging for Black students at LSU, and that the changes could cause the center to lose its identity.

“The AACC was a sense of home and family. It was where Black students and organizations could go and be comfortable with hosting and programming events and seeking resources,” Lockley said. “It is true that minority students, especially Black students, have other needs — especially at a primarily white institution.”

According to Lockley, the NAACP had a meeting with LSU administration about some of the changes to the center. NAACP members asked if the AACC would keep its name.

“[Administration] responded that they’re not sure, and that they’re not in these conversations, leading us to believe that there are conversations of the name being removed,” Lockley said. “But they said they would get back to us on that. They never got back with us.”

Clarence L. Barney, the namesake of the center, was a civil rights activist who first championed the idea of an African American Center in the 1980s, with the center being established in 1993. Barney also served as the first African American chair of the board at LSU in 1992, serving for 14 years, and died in 2005 at the age of 70. LSU voted to rename the center after him in 2017.

Sunstrom explained that LSU has resources for students who feel discriminated against through LSU Cares and the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX. Laugand and Lockley think LSU still does not listen to its minority students.

“It’s like LSU no longer sees the struggles of what it’s like to [be] minority students in the Deep South at a PWI,” Lockley said. “It’s not enough to just say ‘go to LSU CARES,’ because if it was enough, the centers would not have existed in the first place.”

So will the LSU Library name be restored to Middleton?

That is tarzana