Members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community held a sit-in on the Armstrong campus, protesting the alleged removal of LGBTQ+ resources and support services from the university’s website.

Pamphlets provided by the organizers stated that the LGBTQ+ community at Georgia Southern noticed  “a change in administrative attitudes… alongside persistence resistance to language of diversity and intersectionality.” 

The group also shared a list of demands they ask the university to adhere to, specifically: 

• The issuance of a public apology from President Marrero, expressing remorse for the erasure of LGBTQ+ visibility and resource advertisement, and acknowledging the resulting harm to LGBT+ students. 
• Restoration of all previously available information about LGBTQ+ identities and resources to the public-facing GSU website by May 3rd, 2024
• Involvement of experts in LGBTQ+ history, health, and wellbeing in the re-development of Safe Zone training and reinstatement of the training to university staff, faculty, and students by August 14th, 2024
• Establishment of a diverse, transparent task force tasked with actively reviewing and redeveloping university policies, practices, and programming to center diversity, equity, and inclusion, utilizing explicit language of intersectionality, equity, and social justice

“We are hopeful that university administration will be responsive to our wants and our demands and that, ultimately as students, we’re going to continue to make sure our voices are heard,” said Ro, one of the sit-in’s organizers.

“We’re hoping that our demands are met, and if they aren’t met, then we’ll be back in the fall to organize again.”

Ro described the cause of the sit-in as a “lack of transparency on the part of the university.” 

Dr. Alejandra C. Sosa Pieroni, Executive Vice President for Enrollment, Marketing and Student Success, said that administrative officials who attended the event were there to “show support for our students and the LGBTQ community,” and she explained the changes to the university website. 

“We’re in the process of doing a website redesign…and the purpose of the redesign is to make sure that we streamline the user interface and the experience for our students, external audiences and internal audiences,” said Sosa Pieroni. 

“Now in that effort, what we’re doing is we’re identifying what needs to be external to the public, so we make sure those audiences can easily find things, like our prospective students, our community supporters, and our internal audiences.”

“We’re here to support students at the end of the day. The same services we offered prior to this happening [sit-in] are still being offered,” said Kevin Reese, Director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

“We’re still here to support our students, but I think that has been overshadowed by misinformation.”