(CN) - Eight University of Alabama students sued the university's board of trustees, claiming the abrupt suspension and defunding of two student magazines amounts to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination under the First Amendment.
The lawsuit, filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, centers on the magazines Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six, award-winning, student-run publications that had operated for years under the university's Office of Student Media and Media Planning Board.
Alice, launched in 2015, was a lifestyle magazine "by and for college women" that covered fashion, beauty, body image, reproductive justice, queer identity, and other topics relevant to young women and gender-diverse students. Nineteen Fifty-Six, founded in 2020 and named for the year the university's first Black student enrolled, focused on Black excellence, culture, current events, and the lived experiences of Black students on campus.
Both magazines published biannual print issues, maintained active websites and social media, received modest university funding (roughly $16,000 and $12,000 per year, respectively), and employed paid editors while welcoming contributors of all races and genders.
But on Dec. 1, 2025, editors and contributors were suddenly summoned to meetings and told the magazines were being shut down indefinitely. University administrators, including Vice President for Student Life Steven Hood, justified the action by calling the publications "unlawful proxies" for race and sex discrimination.
They pointed to a nonbinding July 2025 memorandum from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi that warned federally funded entities against using "neutral" criteria that could function as stand-ins for protected characteristics. The administrators emphasized the magazines' content and audiences appeared targeted toward women and Black students, even though both publications were open to all students for participation, contribution and readership, and had never excluded anyone based on race or gender.
Meanwhile, every other student media outlet under the university's umbrella continued operating without interruption and kept receiving funding and resources. The Media Planning Board's own charter explicitly designates student media as "public forums" for free expression, prohibits censorship, and promises to protect editorial independence and shield editors from removal over content or viewpoint.
The eight plaintiffs, who are represented by attorneys for the Southern Poverty Law Center, the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, claim some lost leadership roles they had trained for, while others lost the ability to publish long-form articles, photographs, podcasts, or social-media content that reflected their identities and perspectives.
Several say no other campus publication offers the same thematic depth or safe space to explore issues of race, gender, sexuality, and belonging. One plaintiff called the decision "devastating" and noted that members of Alice had already been derisively labeled "DEI hires." Another said the university's message was clear: viewpoints centered on Black or women's experiences are no longer welcome.
"I believe that freedom of expression on campus should neither be censored nor restricted because of its perceived value or audience," said plaintiff Rihanna Pointer in a statement Monday. "Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice have always provided a platform for diverse voices and perspectives that are vital for fostering an inclusive community amongst students on campus, and I have always advocated for diversity of thought and representation through my writing. That's why I believe that the university's suspension of the magazines must be reversed."
Similarly, student plaintiff Gabrielle Gunter said the publications offered an outlet for students whose identities aren't typically amplified in campus media.
"Marginalized students deserve the opportunity to participate in magazines and have access to the same resources and support that other publications have to create opportunities for engagement, discussion, and exploration on a wide array of issues," Gunter said. "Discrimination based on the views of students who seek to create inclusive media for all students has no place in our society, so it's really important to me to keep fighting for what is right."
The students argue that the university created a limited public forum for student media and cannot pick and choose which viewpoints may be expressed. Citing Supreme Court precedent such as Rosenberger v. University of Virginia, they contend that punishing magazines because their editorial perspectives appeal to particular audiences is textbook viewpoint discrimination. They emphasize that the Bondi memo is nonbinding, says nothing about student publications, and cannot override constitutional protections.
"Students at the University of Alabama deserve the right to freely express themselves, including their viewpoints shaped by their experiences as women and Black people," said Sam Boyd, senior supervising attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center. "Their lived experiences are valid, important to the fabric of this country's history and should be shared without interference. The suspension of Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six not only disenfranchises marginalized communities, but it signals a return to the darkest times in our nation's history."
The plaintiffs want the court to declare the suspensions unconstitutional, issue preliminary and permanent injunctions restoring the magazines and their funding, and award attorneys' fees. The university did not immediately return requests for comment.
In January, the University of Alabama Faculty Senate posted a statement opposing the magazine closures, suggesting administrators "preemptively judged these publications to be discriminatory simply because the publications focus on content of interest to women and African Americans."
Source: Courthouse News Service
