Wednesday morning, the University of Cincinnati (UC) Women’s Center, UC LGBTQ Center, the African American Cultural and Resource Center (AACRC) and the UC Ethnic Programs & Services all posted the same message on their Instagram pages: “Per newly enacted Ohio law, this account is no longer active. For Student Affairs content, follow @uc_studentaffairs.”
These four centers, along with the central Equity & Inclusion office, will all close in accordance with SB1. The bill was reintroduced in January and signed into law by Ohio Gov. Mike Dewine in March. SB1 bans diversity and inclusion efforts in Ohio’s public universities and community colleges. It also sets rules around classroom discussions, limits diversity scholarships, requires students to take American history courses and prevents faculty from striking, among other things.
UC President Neville Pinto sent an email detailing these closures to UC students, faculty and staff Tuesday morning, detailing how the former identity center spaces will be “repurposed to support the success of all students.”
The Equity & Inclusion office will be replaced by a unit focused on “ethics, compliance and community impact,” according to Pinto’s email. The unit will be led by Dr. Bleuzette Marshall, the previous vice president for equity & inclusion at UC. The Center for Student Involvement will take up the space that housed Ethnic Programs & Services, the LGBTQ Center and the Women’s Center. The AACRC will shut down and reopen under the name “The Cultural Center,” which will function as a “general space” for all students.
“I recognize that unwinding deeply rooted efforts around inclusion will undoubtedly challenge core feelings of belonging for many in our community. My message to you is unequivocal: You belong here,” said Pinto in the email.
These new changes are part of the statewide repeal of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs in higher education, which were compounded by executive orders from President Trump’s administration earlier this year.
The enactment of these SB1 provisions and the upcoming expiration of the UC faculty labor contract prompted talks between UC administration and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). The desired new contract would have helped nullify some of SB1’s labor provisions that limited union negotiations and strikes, but UC administrators declined to address the union’s demands at a meeting in Columbus Monday, according to the AAUP.
UC faculty attended the UC Board of Trustees meeting Tuesday morning to protest these actions, the same meeting where the SB1 policies were approved.
Vidushi Trivedi recently graduated from UC with a degree in cell biology and neuroscience. She was also the president of UC Feminists, an organization under the Women’s Center (WC), during her time as an undergraduate student.
“The Women’s Center was our lifeline as an org,” Trivedi said. “I had a transformative experience during my four years at UC, a large part of which was spurred on by the Women’s Center. As a lifelong Bearcat, I want other students to be able to have the valuable experience I did.”
While the bans on DEI centers like the Women’s Center are based on the claim that they are discriminatory, Trivedi says the WC is anything but.
“The WC is a space that is centered on women and gender diverse populations, but access to the space has never once been exclusionary based on gender,” she said.
Daion Walker, a senior at UC and media production major, organized an African American film club that started in January. The club kept meeting until March – that’s when things started to decline, said Walker.
“The group that we worked so hard to start was kind of just in a very weird space — we didn’t know if we were going to get shut down, so we had to re-market ourselves from being the University of Cincinnati’s first Black film club that celebrates culture.”
Walker told CityBeat he found a community in the AACRC when he needed it the most – as a freshman.
“[AACRC is] just full of African Americans from different walks of life, and it’s a wonderful place to be, especially for students who, you know, are in a predominantly white school but can’t find others like them,” Walker said.
Both Walker and Trivedi agree that these kinds of organizations are valuable and that losing these centers — or making clubs change out of fear — takes away a sense of belonging and acceptance for minority students.
“As for Pinto – I understand that they have their hands bound between maintaining their state funding and meeting students’ needs,” Trivedi said. “However, students have repeatedly called for transparency in the decision-making process, which I personally don’t think we got. To me, being committed to all students means advocating for them and their right to safely exist on campus.”
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 8, 2025.