\n<\/p>\n
Despite the economic realities of the outside world, the campus magazine survives. Or perhaps not, if other colleges and universities begin to interpret federal guidance like the University of Alabama.<\/p>\n
Students at my own institution, Syracuse University, put out a fashion magazine, a food magazine and a Black student life magazine last semester, among others. And that\u2019s just one semester: Magazines come and go most years based on student interests and appetites. (I do not miss a particularly provocative, though well-designed, sex magazine.) These student-run publications are a chance for young people to develop critical thinking, writing and editorial skills as they skewer icons and interrogate their world. They are also empowering. For these digital natives, there\u2019s something especially meaningful about committing your name and your ideas to print for all the world to see. Student media helps young people make sense of a confusing present and uncertain future.<\/p>\n
Students at the University of Alabama shared in this tradition until Dec. 1, when campus officials effectively eliminated two magazines. Nineteen Fifty-Six<\/em> was founded in 2020 and named for the year the first Black student, Autherine Lucy Foster, enrolled at Alabama. The magazine\u2019s website notes that it is a \u201cstudent-run magazine focused on Black culture, Black excellence, and Black student experiences at The University of Alabama.\u201d Alice <\/em>magazine launched in 2015 as \u201ca fashion and wellness magazine that serves the students of the University of Alabama.\u201d Like most professional consumer fashion or wellness publications, women are the primary audience.<\/p>\n Though Alabama\u2019s administration cited federal anti-DEI guidance as the impetus for its decision, The Crimson White<\/em>, Alabama\u2019s student newspaper, reported that neither magazine \u201cbarred participation based on personal characteristics like race and gender identity\u201d and that both publications had \u201chired staff who were not part of their target audiences.\u201d The same is true in industry; some of the most talented editors I\u2019ve worked with were not the target audience of the publications they led.<\/p>\n In their 2021 book, Curating Culture: How Twentieth-Century Magazines Influenced America<\/em> (Bloomsbury), editors and scholars Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin and Charles Whitaker observe that magazines provide \u201cinformation, inspiration, empathy, and advocacy for readers with specific interests, identities, goals, and concerns.\u201d In a 2007 article, magazine scholar David Abrahamson explains that magazines \u201chave a special role in their readers\u2019 lives, constructing a community or affinity group in which the readers feel they are members.\u201d Magazines, by intention and design, are exclusive and niche. That\u2019s why audiences love them. Today, media across all platforms follow the magazine\u2019s lead. What is a \u201cFor You\u201d feed if not an enticing unspooling of curated content? <\/p>\n At Alabama, university officials were quick to point out that they were merely cutting financial support for the magazines, not attacking free speech, as students at public institutions are protected by the First Amendment. (Never mind that the Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that public universities may charge an activity fee to fund a program that facilitates speech if the program is viewpoint neutral, meaning that funds are disbursed in way that does not privilege one perspective over another.)<\/p>\n Alabama has cited Attorney General Pam Bondi\u2019s nonbinding 2025 guidance for recipients of federal funding, suggesting that because the two magazines primarily target certain groups, they are \u201cunlawful proxies\u201d for discrimination. Student press advocates are unconvinced by this rationale\u2014one called it \u201cnonsense\u201d\u2014but perhaps Alabama\u2019s leaders did not want to find out whether the modest funding used to support a magazine read by women (among others) and another read by Black people (among others) would be considered unlawful \u201cresource allocation\u201d or \u201cproxy discrimination.\u201d Or maybe eliminating funding for one magazine coded as female gave adequate cover to cut a magazine explicitly targeted at another group. That Alice <\/em>magazine didn\u2019t even identify itself as a \u201cwomen\u2019s magazine\u201d is enough to demonstrate that whom and what content is for is no longer defined by editors or the free market, but the specter of Trump\u2019s Department of Justice. <\/p>\n The chilling effect ripples. Universities that fear retribution from the Trump administration may be wary not only of student-run magazines, but any publication produced with public funds, including scholarly journals. So watch out, Southern Historian<\/em>. You may be next. <\/p>\n Aileen Gallagher is a journalism professor at Syracuse University\u2019s S.\u00a0I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and a former magazine editor. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Despite the economic realities of the outside world, the campus magazine survives. Or perhaps not, if other colleges and universities begin to interpret federal guidance like the University of Alabama. Students at my own institution, Syracuse University, put out a fashion magazine, a food magazine and a Black student life magazine last semester, among others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2129,6142,440,21953],"class_list":{"0":"post-40983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-defense","9":"tag-magazine","10":"tag-opinion","11":"tag-studentrun"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}