A single piece of paper titled “Spring 2025 Proposed Events” hangs beside Ash Vadnais’ desk inside SE Campus’ Student Activities office. The list of 24 events, which are covered in dashes and marks, contrasts with the previous semester’s Excel spreadsheet listing 46 approved events.
The sheet was curated by Vadnais and other student workers at the beginning of the semester to keep track of events and their approvals. Since then, they’ve struggled managing the list due to event cancellations and changes related to Texas Senate Bill 17.
“I don’t even know where to start,” Vadnais said. “Most of the time as workers, we hear about events approval like an hour or two hours before.”
Vadnais and students across the district say their lives on campus have become increasingly difficult following the law, which took effect in 2024 enforcing a diversity, equity and inclusion ban in higher education, has negatively affected campus culture.
Prior to the law, advisers would help create, organize and fund both meetings and activities held for students on campus. Now, they are no longer allowed to coordinate anything concerning DEI, and cultural events must be entirely student-led to meet SB-17 requirements.
DEI Impact List obtained through an open records request by The Collegian
“I understand the argument it has to be pushed from the students, but it’s kind of useless because what students want is to be seen by the school,” said SE student Leslie Zacarias, a Student Activities employee and Student Government Association officer. “It’s just not a good feeling when you realize that you can’t really do anything about it.”
Their responsibilities at Student Activities are to plan, post and host events for students while also publishing flyers for student club events when they receive approval by TCC’s administration.
“We’re trying to be organized and prepared and do our best for the students and the school,” Vadnais said. “We really can’t do our best job if we’re not being approved.”
An event and its promotional flyer must be checked by Student Activities and sent to TCC administrators for additional approval before Student Activities can publicize anything regarding it.
Both Zacarias and Vadnais said they don’t know who oversees approving events, but from what they’ve gathered, it requires multiple signatures and a lot of time.
“I’ve heard from our bosses that it takes a three-month interval,” Vadnais said. “They send it in for an approval and then get approved the day of the event. Then, they have to rush to get everything they need to make it.”
Hosting an event approved the day it is scheduled forces student workers or the student club to officially publicize the event, purchase the supplies needed for it and set it up all within a few hours.
“It’s very conflicting because we want students to be participating,” Vadnais said. “We want to have volunteers come in. We used to have a lot of volunteers.”
Previously, Student Activities would post volunteer opportunities for students to sign up and work at these events. Now, it’s become difficult to provide students with the ability to earn those hours while on campus.
“We can’t reach out to people and ask if they can come on a certain day because we don’t even know what day,” Vadnais said.
If an event is approved with enough time for Student Activities to print a flyer, it needs three mandatory stamps: one stating the event is TCC approved for Student Activities to host, another stating TCC is an equal opportunity institution and finally one saying all are welcome and encouraged to attend.
Flyers must also list contact information for students needing any accommodation to attend.
“It says up to three days prior to the event. If flyers aren’t posted more than three days in advance, how are they going to even reach out?” Zacarias said. “It’s kind of counterintuitive to even have that in the first place if you can’t really do anything about it.”
Both said they agreed these unnecessary loops are being forced upon them by an unknown and unreachable source, who’s not providing them with clear and concise rules on how to follow SB-17’s regulations, making their job challenging.
SE Student Development Services Director Doug Peak said additional approvals from vice presidents and legal teams are now needed to make sure events follow the state mandate.
“It’s just an added layer of someone looking at it,” Peak said. “If you want to have an event, we can have it. There’s not a might be. My VP gets back to me within a day. I send him something, and it’s rare that by 5 o’clock he hasn’t responded.”
SE did not celebrate the Lunar New Year, which was an annual event, according to Vadnais. And SE students also faced challenges when trying to plan events for Black History Month, Zacarias said.
“The thing is that the law specifically states that federal holidays are protected, so why was it such a problem for us?” Zacarias said. “It doesn’t make it genuine if we can’t have half the events that we used to, which was for the community.”
Many cultural celebrations have been erased from campus life without explanation. Clubs wanting to host events must begin the process much earlier.
South Campus’ Black Student Union began preparing events for Black History Month before the end of the fall semester because they knew there would be issues, according to the club’s Vice President Jahson Anderson.
“It’s like walking in circles instead of just getting straight to the point. We have to do X, Y and Z to get to A, B and C when we’re already on D, E, and F.” Anderson said.
“There’s certain words we can’t use, certain things that we can’t do and it’s just constantly updated.”
BSU hosted four events in February to celebrate Black History Month but not without any hurdles. Clubs have always hosted fundraisers, but now the student members are having to do this without guidance.
“Our advisers, or now called sponsors, they’re not allowed to help us,” Anderson said. “It’s harder to do things as a student.”
NE Gardening Club President Fatima Hernandez said her members were concerned for their event to celebrate a Mexican tradition in which one gives an offering to a deceased family member or friend’s spirit in November.
“I remember when the new law came in, we were really worried,” Hernandez said. “I remember it was very specific for my adviser. She told us we will have to cancel it since she is part of faculty, and faculty cannot promote those events.”
However, since the Gardening Club proposed and planned the event prior to TCC providing a website with SB-17 guidelines, their event was not canceled.
“We were lucky,” Hernandez said. “We decided to play it safe this semester, so we don’t have to push back on the stuff we are planning.”
Without proper support, student clubs deal with many complications, and Hernandez said she feels very limited because of this.
“For new organizations or organizations that haven’t faced that, it’s going to be hard at least the first couple times because we don’t really know what exactly to do,” Hernandez said.
Movers Unlimited dance company members Vanessa Lamas and Christopher Garcia wished they knew more about SB-17 prior to NE Campus’ International Festival being canceled.
“We thought it was actually still scheduled. I mean, we had a date,” Garcia said. “So, we had a plan and everything.”
The students were unaware of the festival’s cancellation until The Collegian informed them. Their dance group has annually performed at the festival, and both Lamas and Garcia said they were disappointed to learn they were no longer doing that.
“I feel like it would have been really good information to have to fight for it,” Lamas said. “We’ve been coming here for years because we thought we were able to be like, ‘Well, this is who I am, and this is where I come from.’ Now moving forward, it’s gonna be a little scary.”
Dr. Jim Terry, a NE continuing education student and retired primary care physician, is 71 years old. He grew up in the East Texas town of Kilgore during the Vietnam era. He said he witnessed administrations back then try to suppress any counterculture messages.
“It is very, very scary that, particularly on college campuses, and as we’ve seen recently amongst law firms, that you have to be very careful who you talk to,” Terry said. “That’s what’s happening on campus, where faculty is afraid to speak. People’s livelihoods could be taken away from them. Their lives could be ruined.”
He said leaders can tap into and abuse the rights of specific groups in the population, mentioning both Woodrow Wilson’s administration threatening newspapers in the early 20th century and the McCarthy era when many were targeted as communists.
“Those that have the force of their conviction to speak up cannot be ignored. I mean, it got so bad that students were shot and killed at Kent State University [in 1970],” Terry said. “I guess they think they’re doing something good, when they’re actually doing the opposite.”
Diversity is necessary on college campuses for students to be capable of understanding one another, according to Terry.
“A lot of hard work has gone into [events] by a lot of good people, and I’d like to see them continue that, even in the face of persecution. Yeah, I know that’s hard,” Terry said. “Perseverance in the face of tyranny is the most admired trait amongst humans.” Student Rafael Thompson said he has recognized the culture on NE Campus change.
“I’ve been here for about two years, and I’ve seen and attended most of the events, and I noticed back then, when I first started, there was a lot more openness to conversation. There would be gatherings,” Thompson said. “Lately, there are no events. There’s just Transferring 101.”
He said his experiences prior to TCC’s compliance with SB-17 were the reason he chose to attend this college. Now, with the severity of action taken by the college due to the DEI ban, his attitude has changed.
“Last year, I would have told people, ‘Oh yeah, you can come here, you can get your basics done, transfer out, make friends, do social events, volunteer and have this big ol’ stacked experience list,’” Thompson said. “But now there’s no events, no opportunities to make friends, no options to volunteer. It’s just your basics.”
