I still remember what it felt like to walk into my high school’s Black Student Union for the first time. It wasn’t a big space—just a dusty classroom with folding chairs and posters of everyone from Angela Davis, Josephine Baker, Booker T. Washington, Lauryn Hill, and Arthur Ashe taped to the wall, but it felt like home. It was the first place I saw other Black students laugh loudly, ask tough questions, and support one another without apology. So when I got accepted into a predominantly white university, I knew exactly what I was looking for: that same sense of belonging.

What I didn’t expect was how much harder I’d have to fight to find it. At my PWI, the Black Student Union wasn’t handed to us—it was built, year by year, by students like me who were tired of feeling invisible in lecture halls and silenced in campus discussions. I eventually became president of our BSU. That title didn’t come with a stipend or an office, but it came with purpose. We hosted town halls, demanded funding, checked on first-year students who were struggling, and threw cookouts that reminded us we were allowed joy. The BSU didn’t just help me survive college—it made me feel powerful enough to lead.

That’s why watching BSUs across the country get defunded, dissolved, or pushed off campus in this new anti-DEI era hits so hard. Because I know exactly what’s being lost—and exactly how vital these spaces still are.

The dismantling of DEI initiatives didn’t start in a vacuum. Since 2023, conservative lawmakers have pushed anti-DEI legislation under the guise of protecting meritocracy and “colorblindness.” Eleven states—including Texas, Florida, and Utah—have passed laws to eliminate DEI programs in public universities. These policies don’t just target administrative departments; they extend to student organizations, funding streams, and even graduation ceremonies.

In early 2025, Executive Orders 14151 and 14173 were initiated, effectively gutting federal support for DEI-related work and threatening any public institution that upheld race-conscious programming. Suddenly, safe spaces for Black students weren’t just ignored—they were criminalized.

The University of Utah’s Black Cultural Center shut its doors in July 2024 following new state guidelines. Their Black Student Union lost all university funding and formal recognition, forcing it to break away and operate independently. “We had to choose: either stop programming, or find a way to survive without the institution,” said one student organizer in an interview with The Guardian.

Across the country, similar stories are playing out. At schools like the University of Florida and Texas A&M, BSUs have seen budgets slashed, advisors reassigned, and Black student leaders left to scramble for meeting space and visibility.

The erasure of BSUs ignores their radical origins. Born from 1960s student activism, Black Student Unions were not mere cultural spaces—they were sites of protest, organizing, and intellectual revolution. They led sit-ins, pushed for Black studies departments, and challenged the narrative that campuses were neutral spaces.

BSUs weren’t asking for permission to exist; they were demanding a seat at the table. They laid the foundation for DEI initiatives before the acronym even existed. And now, as DEI comes under attack, BSUs are returning to those grassroots roots—operating like movement hubs, not clubs.

The dismantling of formal DEI support leaves Black students uniquely vulnerable. Without culturally competent counseling, Black students facing discrimination or mental health crises are left to navigate alone. Without designated gathering spaces, they often feel isolated, tokenized, and hyper-visible on campus. Without institutional protection, they are more susceptible to harassment and academic marginalization.

And the numbers prove it. Black students remain underrepresented in higher education overall—comprising just 9% of college students at public institutions and less than 6% at elite universities, despite making up over 14% of the U.S. population. The dropout rate among Black students is nearly double that of their white peers, and much of that is tied to climate, not capacity.

These aren’t abstract ideas—they’re survival realities. The presence of a BSU can mean the difference between staying and dropping out. Between feeling seen and feeling expendable.

Some universities are trying to replace DEI with the language of “pluralism”—a new, sanitized way to talk about inclusion without naming race. While pluralism sounds open-minded on the surface, it often avoids the hard conversations about power, equity, and systemic harm.

BSUs are not here for euphemisms. They are asking for protection, not just representation. They’re calling out the hypocrisy of institutions that market themselves as “diverse” while quietly gutting the very programs that make campuses livable for Black students.

That’s why this re-renaissance of Black Student Unions matters so much. It’s not just nostalgia for what once was—it’s a necessary response to what is. BSUs are adapting, surviving, and in many cases, thriving without institutional support. They are protest, refuge, culture, and strategy all rolled into one. And they are still, decades later, the heartbeat of Black student life on campuses that were never built for us in the first place.

This fall, my oldest daughter will begin her freshman year at a predominantly white institution—just like I did. She’s nervous, excited, and already asking if the school has a Black Student Union. I hope she finds what I found: a community that holds her through the hard days, reminds her who she is when the world tries to make her small, and gives her the confidence to lead, love, and show up unapologetically.

Because as long as there are Black students, there will be a need for Black Student Unions. And no law, no budget cut, no university silence will ever be stronger than the power we create when we come together.