AIM’s “Enormous Impact” Spotlighted on AL.com
September 5, 2025
A university in Alabama has quietly shut down a program aimed at supporting LGBTQ students.
The Mitchell-West Center for Social Inclusion opened on the campus of the University
“The students benefitted from the center enormously,” said Mitchell, one of the founding donors and namesakes of the center, along with his husband. “But the community outside the university also benefited because it had such a big reach.”
The Mitchell-West Center worked to address challenges like suicide prevention and food insecurity, as well as to provide resources and support for LGBTQ and other underrepresented students.
But in the years since the center opened, both Alabama and Donald Trump have declared war on diversity, equity and inclusion in schools.
“We are very disappointed with its closure,” Mitchell said. “But our biggest disappointment is that the federal government is able to go into state schools and dictate what they’re supposed to teach and not teach. It’s going to have an enormous impact on minority students, LGBTQ students, underrepresented students. There are people that aren’t going to be able to go to school, there are people that aren’t going to be able to afford housing.”
Michelle Eubanks, a spokesperson for the University of North Alabama, did not provide details to AL.com about when exactly the center closed, but did say in a statement that “The University of North Alabama is committed to complying fully with state and federal law.”
Alabama passed a law in 2024 that stops state institutions and universities from using public funding for diversity, equity and inclusion offices, or for any DEI programming that advocates for a so-called “divisive concept.”
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