SB 17's DEI cuts defunded UT-Austin's cultural graduations. Students have preserved them.

As a bilingual master of ceremonies for the University of Texas Latinx graduation ceremony last year, Katherine Ospina-Prieto asked the crowd to cheer for the beaming parents “again and again and again.”

The memory stuck with her. She wanted that ceremony — one with the Spanish her grandmother preferred and that her parents would be proud to hear — for her family when they came in from Katy this May.

But in late March, Ospina-Prieto was told by Liany Serrano Oviedo, a fellow Latinx Community Affairs student officer, that the chances of a ceremony for the class of 2024 looked slim. May was fast approaching, and Latinx Community Affairs, which puts on the Latinx graduation, didn’t have the money or a secured venue.

“I was like ‘No, this just simply cannot happen,’” Ospina-Prieto said. “I remember how special that graduation was.”

UT’s now-shuttered Division of Campus and Community Engagement previously funded cultural graduation ceremonies for Latino, Black, Asian and queer students. Thousands attended each year and witnessed unique celebrations: Greek life strolling at Black Graduation and bilingual programming at the Latinx ceremony.

With the division’s closure in January due to a Texas law banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public universities, the ceremonies lost their sponsor. Student efforts over the past months — and the support of alumni, faculty, Austin officials and residents — have revived them. Ceremonies this year will move off campus and operate on tighter budgets, but they’ll keep their traditions. With no return to DEI funding in sight, this year’s rescue efforts could be an example of what student-led efforts will look like in the years to come.

The University of Texas did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Stripped of funds, ceremonies move off campus

Traditionally, UT has spent tens of thousands of dollars to pay for speakers, venue operations, food, decorations and student stoles for the cultural graduations. They’ve also provided the venues, like Gregory Gymnasium for the Latinx ceremony and the Texas Union Ballroom for Black Grad.

It was a large responsibility student groups did not expect to fall to them this year. Once it did, student leaders said the preservation of the ceremonies didn’t seem like an option.

“We had to do right by our class,” said Ariana Seeloff, co-director of the Afrikan-American Affairs student group, formerly affiliated with the Division of Campus and Community Engagement. Seeloff helped put together this year’s Black Grad.

Zion James, a graduate student at UT who participated in Black Grad as an undergraduate last year and helped organize it this year, said he thought the ceremony was necessary to celebrate the resilience of a class who experienced the George Floyd protests, the COVID-19 pandemic and this year’s DEI cuts.

Black Grad’s unique celebrations include strolling, in which members of the historically Black sororities and fraternities perform choreographed dance-marches, and a special recognition for Black studies majors. Black faculty also present a stole and a hood to each undergraduate and each graduate student, respectively.

Student leaders put together their own budgets. With Texas Exes providing the traditional graduation stoles, food and speakers at their cultural graduation celebrations (which will not have roll calls), students focused on replacing the stages themselves. They looked off-campus for venues and community sponsors. James and Ospina-Prieto said the decision to go off-campus was influenced by cost and a sense that off-campus was a more secure space for faculty and staff to show their support of students.

After weeks of calls and meetings, Ospina-Prieto secured the Austin school district Performing Arts Center after District 4 Council Member José “Chito” Vela’s office connected the students with the district. She also got the civil rights group League of United Latin American Citizens to pay for the venue and offer logistical support.

“It was honestly just a bunch of throwing all the eggs in a bunch of different baskets and seeing which one fits,” Ospina-Prieto said.

James called Black churches on the East side to find a venue for Black Grad. Greater Mt. Zion Church off East Martin Luther King Boulevard eventually offered its hall. The church, he said, was a good fit because many students know it and take a church shuttle to Sunday services.

What will happen in the future?

With DEI severed from the university, students could remain solely responsible for cultural graduations for years to come. James said he plans to help fundraising and logistical efforts for next year's class begin as soon as possible.

Serrano Oviedo said that Latinx Community Affairs has submitted a budget proposal to the Austin City Council requesting funds for next year’s graduation ceremony, along with the group’s leadership and cultural programming.

“We’re doing it now, we’ve done it before and we’re going to do it again,” Seeloff said.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: UT Austin students keep cultural graduations defunded by SB 17