A graduation ceremony that celebrates Latino students’ culture at the University of Texas at Austin will go forward off campus, despite cuts to diversity programs that left the event unfunded.
The cancelled Latinx Graduation will take place thanks in part to the League of United Latin American Citizens, the nation's oldest Latino civil rights group, and online donations.
UT cut off funding for the symbolic Latinx Graduation and graduations for other groups as part of its eradication of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and the elimination of some 60 employees working on DEI. This followed the enactment of a state law banning DEI initiatives in public colleges and universities.
UT shuttered its Multicultural Engagement Center and defunded Latinx Community Affairs, which organized the graduation. UT also cut off money for Black Graduation, GraduAsian and the Lavender Graduation, which celebrates LGBTQ students. These ceremonies are held in addition to the universitywide graduation and those held by the different academic departments.
Latino students lamented the elimination of a ceremony that focused on the bicultural heritage of many graduates and their families. The Latinx Graduation was bilingual and allowed for multiple family members to attend. It included Latino food, music and decor that is not present in the universitywide or individual school graduations.
Latino programs, events such as the Latinx Graduation and venues such as the shuttered multicultural center, have been seen as important to recruiting, retaining and graduating Latino students, particularly at the state’s flagship, which has lagged in enrolling Hispanic students.
The events' cancellations left students to scramble for other ways to hold the events and pay for them. The university alumni group, Texas Exes, is holding multicultural celebrations where families can meet and greet but not actual graduation ceremonies.
Latino students tried to turn to private donors, but initially only raised $2,000, well short of their estimated of its GoFundMe goal of $9,000, and not enough to secure a venue.
Katherine Ospina, outreach chair of Latinx Community Affairs, one of the groups UT stopped funding, said the students did not want to end up with a deficit. She began cold-calling elected officials and Latino organizations, including LULAC.
The funds were going to cover security, printing, insurance, chords for students to wear, and graduation speakers. The group had cut other costs such as music and the buffet they've held at previous Latinx graduations.
"The venue was going to be its own cost in and of itself so LULAC said they would be more than happy to cover the venue costs," she said. Austin elected officials also discounted the cost of the venue, the Austin Independent School District Performing Arts Center.
"Among my cold calls, LULAC was one of them and they were 100%," she said.
This year's Latinx graduates will be given an orange chord, a color of the monarch butterfly, to drape across their shoulders, Ospina said. Monarchs, which migrate from Mexico to the U.S. and back, have been used in the immigrant community and by young immigrants who call themselves "Dreamers." The chord represents the Latinx Graduation theme of "dreaming for better."
"It's so easy to feel deflated after all this," Ospina said. "But Latinos have always survived as part of their dream for better."
Before Texas' anti-DEI law, the university allowed the group to hold the graduation in Gregory Gym on the campus, that has a capacity for thousands of people.
While speaking to NBC News, Ospina looked at the status of the GoFundMe and discovered the group's $9,000 goal had been met. The money is not just for the graduation. Its purpose is to help the next group of students hold the new student orientation, leadership symposiums and other events that were ended when UT eliminated their funding. Another student, Liany Serrano, who is in charge of the group's special events, had set up the GoFundMe.
"Oh my gosh!" Ospina said after opening the GoFundMe site during the phone interview with NBC News. "That's crazy. We just met our goal just now."
Because LULAC is helping out with the graduation cost, the GoFundMe money can be used for the other events, she said.
Domingo García, LULAC president, said that when he learned UT was ending the Latinx and other graduations it reminded him of the group having to intervene on students' behalf when Humble High School in Texas barred students from wearing serape stoles at graduation last year.
"We helped the teacher with graduation there and I just think students should be proud of their heritage and their culture and have a certain way that recognizes that, especially because many of them are first-generation college graduates from the top state University of Texas," he said.
García said the Texas anti-DEI law is "regressive" and "xenophobic."
LULAC was founded in 1929 and its creators included professionals and veterans from upper and middle class sectors of the Mexican American community who fought for civil rights and equal treatment as U.S. citizens.
"We are celebrating our 95th anniversary. What better way to celebrate than to celebrate those young men and women who are going to be part of the future of America in business, education and government?" García asked. "That's what our legacy is about."
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