A student group’s monthslong fight to preserve a student-run LGBTQ+ space in the Student Union (SU) ended unceremoniously Friday evening, with University Police escorting remaining sit-in protesters from the room.
Videos obtained by The Spectrum show around half a dozen students inside SU room 373, three of them holding the door shut against a group of UPD officers attempting to enter. After several minutes, the officers are seen entering, telling the students they were not allowed in the room and ordering them to collect their belongings and leave.
Closure drew protests
Friday’s incident marked the end of a space that was operated since 2021 by volunteers from UB’s LGBTA, an undergraduate club. Despite university moves to discontinue all club rooms within the Student Union, SU 373 continued to function for several years due to its status as the only LGBTQ+ space on campus.
This fall, UB opened the larger, staffed LGBTQ+ Center on the second floor, and on Oct. 2, the university told the LGBTA its time was up. At the time, UB officials told the group to leave by Dec. 8, a deadline it later changed to this Friday, Dec. 19, to accommodate finals. The university plans to turn the space into a commuter student lounge.
The move drew protests from the LGBTA — two marches and a previous sit-in — which said that the new space’s university-run status would stifle discussion of sensitive and intimate topics and that its high-traffic location made it unusable for students who wished to stay in the closet.
Those assertions drew pushback from Gi Swords, director of UB’s LGBTQ+ Center, who told club leaders in a Dec. 5 meeting that the center was working to address those concerns, including by installing window coverings, but that the LGBTA wasn’t engaging with the center’s efforts.
“I’ve only had two of our LGBTA friends who have been in that space for more than 20 minutes,” Swords said. “I want to work with you guys so badly. Please let me work with you on it.”
The university's actions also drew a rare rebuke from the undergraduate Student Association Senate, which unanimously passed a resolution calling on the university to consider revising its policies to allow student-run community spaces.
At the Dec. 5 meeting, which was prompted by the SA Senate resolution and questioning from Faculty Senate members, Vice President for Student Life Brian Hamluk tabled the possibility that the university’s annual spring policy review could yield a policy change allowing the room to reopen.
“There’s going to have to be a conversation about how do some student organizations not get left out,” Hamluk said. “The reality is that there’s not enough space on campus.”
But for now, he said, the room would have to close on Dec. 19 — no compromises.
‘This is what UB is and always has been’
On Friday, that deadline arrived.
At around 4 p.m., a university staff member came to SU 373 and told remaining students they would need to leave by 5 p.m., according to LGBTA President Kay Heubusch.
At 7:15 p.m., eight UPD officers arrived in the third-floor hallway and began knocking.
The remaining five students held the door closed, telling the officers they wouldn’t leave without an agreement to keep the room open.
“This room needs to stay a space for queer students, and the minute that we leave, we know they are going to keep this room closed and it is never coming back,” LGBTA junior e-board member Lorien Samarra told officers through the door.
“I’m not a person that can change that decision,” UPD Deputy Chief Scott Marciszewski responded. “All I’m doing is asking you to please leave.”
After about five minutes, Marciszewski pushed the door open, with Samarra briefly attempting to block him from entering.
Eventually, a larger group of UPD officers entered the room, and several of the remaining protesters delivered brief speeches before leaving.
“I want everyone to know, everyone who’s watching this, this is what University at Buffalo is,” Samarra said to the camera. “They want to intimidate students. They want to force us out of our spaces. They have nothing but contempt for the student population. They have nothing but contempt for queer students. They care not about our safety. They want us gone, and they will send eight police officers to try to evict us from this room. This is what UB is and always has been. That’s what they did at the Palestine protest a year ago. That’s what they’ve been doing. That’s what they’ve always done.”
UB spokesperson John Della Contrada issued a brief statement to The Spectrum Friday night.
“The students were informed by staff of the university’s policy against camping,” he wrote. “University Police asked the students to leave the room and they did so peacefully.”
UPD did not make any arrests.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor and can be reached at mylien.lai@ubspectrum.com.
Mylien Lai is the senior news editor at The Spectrum. Outside of getting lost in Buffalo, she enjoys practicing the piano and being a bean plant mom. She can be found at @my_my_my_myliennnn on Instagram.
Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
