The scene on the University of Alabama campus this week looked like something out of a bittersweet student movie: editors standing outside handing out the final copies of their magazines, knowing the school had just pulled the plug, according to the Associated Press. Not because the work wasn’t good. Not because students weren’t reading it. But because the publications — one celebrating Black student life and another amplifying women’s voices — supposedly run afoul of new federal DEI guidance.

Yep. That’s where we are.

According to student editors, university officials called a meeting Monday and announced that Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice would stop publishing immediately. No warning, no phase-out, just… done. Both teams were actively working on next semester’s issues when the news hit.

The explanation came wrapped in legal language linked to Attorney General Pamela Bondi’s July memo — the one outlining what the administration considers “unlawful discrimination” at federally funded schools. In that memo, the Justice Department warns against so-called “unlawful proxies,” which basically means anything that could be interpreted as standing in for race, gender, or other protected categories. Even if participation is open to everyone, the intended audience can raise flags.

And that, editors say, is exactly what the university pointed to: the mere fact that one magazine centered women and the other focused on Black student life.

For the team behind Alice, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary, the decision felt surreal. The magazine’s most recent issue covered everything from beauty content to misogyny in heavy metal to reproductive politics — the kind of varied storytelling you’d find in any women-centered publication. Editor-in-chief Gabrielle Gunter said she believed the First Amendment protected their right to exist. She also noted that she was told a women-centered target audience now counts as a violation of federal guidance.

On the Nineteen Fifty-Six side, editor Kendal Wright says the decision hurts but doesn’t shock her given the national climate. Named after the year Autherine Lucy Foster integrated the university, the magazine has been a home for Black student stories for the past five years. Its latest edition featured pieces from international students and reflections on building community as DEI programs disappear across the state.

And this shutdown isn’t happening in a vacuum. Last year, the university closed the Black Student Union’s dedicated space, along with the LGBTQ+ resource center, under Alabama’s sweeping anti-DEI law.

Still, the university insists it’s simply following federal rules. A spokesperson said Alabama aims to support all students while remaining legally compliant and promised that a new, “broader” student magazine will be created. Officials also claim students’ First Amendment rights are “fully intact.”

But for the editors who just lost the platforms they built, those assurances ring hollow. As Gunter and her staff handed out the last copies across campus, she summed up the moment bluntly:
“If someone’s going to read our final work, it’s going to be the students — not a trash bin when they clear out our office.”