FIX EXCLUSIVES
School shutters LGBTQ+2S Resource Center website while internship underway
The University of Arizona is offering a for-credit internship this fall to give students a deeper understanding of “Queer and Trans liberation” and encourage “the development of a scholar-activist identity” for “LGBTQ+2S” students.
One Arizona-based education policy expert raised concerns with The College Fix about the public university granting academic credit for “ideological activism.”
The internship is a student-funded, three-credit and year-long collaboration between the LGBTQ+2S Resource Center and the university’s Pride Alliance student group, according to the program’s description reviewed by The College Fix.
The program’s webpage was removed after a media inquiry about it last week from The College Fix. An archived version from the 2023-24 school year is still available.
“This internship encourages the development of a scholar-activist identity for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, asexual, and two-spirit (LGBTQA+2S) and allied students at The University of Arizona, particularly through the lens of sexual orientation, autonomy and advocacy, gender identity, and gender expression,” according to the program description for the 2025-26 year reviewed by The Fix.
Additionally, interns will discuss “LGBTQ+ Liberation” and attend a weekly class “focusing on identity development and social justice leadership skills,” according to an Instagram post by the Pride Alliance.
Students will also lead one Pride Alliance program each semester and “create and attend programming highlighting LGBTQ+2S advocacy, empowerment, and engagement.”
University spokesperson Mieczyslaw Zak told The Fix the internship is funded by students.
“The university’s Campus Community Connections consolidated the cultural and resource centers into the new Student Culture and Engagement Hub, and students now have streamlined access to programs that foster leadership and belonging,” Zak said via email.
“The university offers hundreds of unique internship opportunities across colleges, and this particular program is funded by students and open to all,” he said. The application deadline was Aug. 1 and students will be admitted on a rolling basis.
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However, Matt Beienburg, director of education policy at the Goldwater Institute, said this program has no place in a public university. UA is substituting “academic instruction” for “ideological activism,” he said.
“It is appalling that the university would replace the taxpayer subsidized credits offered for rigorous coursework with outside activism designed explicitly to ‘deepen their understanding of systems of oppression, power, and privilege’ and ‘develop social justice leadership skills,’” Beienburg said.
The Pride Alliance student group aims to foster a safe environment for LGBTQ+ students “in a world that is increasingly fighting against [them],” according to the club’s description.
The group claims it stands against “injustice towards marginalized groups” such as “racism, colonialism, nationalism, capitalism, Zionism, ableism and queerphobia.”
While the internship is underway, the school’s LGBTQ+2S Resource Center has expressed concerns on social media regarding its rebranding.
“The administration at the University of Arizona is slowly destroying all of the cultural resource centers. First they fired the directors, then they took our names, and now they have removed our websites,” the resource center announced in an Instagram post Monday.
“We refuse to allow them to censor another form of our resources, so this account has been taken over by the LGBTQ+ Student Council,” the post reads.
The university’s move to shutter the resource center’s website follows President Donald Trump’s recent executive order eliminating “diversity, equity, and inclusion” initiatives in higher education.
The executive order, “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” states there are only two biological genders: male and female.
The order also requires the federal government to recognize only an individual’s biological gender instead of gender identity and ceases agency funding of any programs that encourage “gender identity.”
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IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: Aerial view of UA; The University of Arizona/Youtube
