QuickTake:

The University of Oregon’s South Asian, Southwest Asian and North African Center emerged from a coalition of student groups, but its transition into a university-run space has brought new constraints and conflict over activism.

The University of Oregon’s newest cultural center opened its doors just this winter, but some student organizers say the space they fought to create is slipping out of their control.

In January, the South Asian, Southwest Asian and North African Center opened in a second-floor room of UO’s Erb Memorial Union in response to demands from a coalition of more than a dozen student cultural organizations. Calls for the center originated from the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus in spring 2024.

One student staffer at the SSWANA Center, as well as members of UO’s student government, told Lookout Eugene-Springfield that internal disputes with administrators have since surfaced over what the center can do and post online, particularly when it comes to activism against Israel’s government.

The disagreements reflect a larger debate over whether the center is a university function for cultural advocacy and education, or a student-driven hub for activism where cultural identity and politics intersect.

Student fees primarily fund the center — housed under the university’s Multicultural Center within the Division of Student Life — and its four student employees.

“We are trying to make a center that can speak out on what it believes is right and wrong, and help students and their families, and the answer is immediately, ‘Legally, we cannot do that,’” said center engagement fellow Rayna Patel, a junior.

“It’s frustrating to hear over and over again how much [the university is] trying to conform, when, in reality, we already stand out,” Patel continued. “Why can’t we just lean into that?”

In an interview with Lookout, two administrators within UO’s Division for Student Life pointed to a state law restricting public employees from taking political stances, though the law primarily applies to partisan politics and campaigns. They also cited the university’s efforts to continue to “align with guidance and policies from our government.” 

Jimmy Howard, UO’s associate vice president for student life and dean of students, said the budding center is experiencing “growing pains” that come with new partnerships between students and the university. 

“I expect them to have conflict and disagreement and dissent from what we choose to do, because we’re not the students, and we’re not the student activism that brought us to this place,” Howard said. “There’s a role for them in the center. It’s just not them directing the center in that way.”

In early March, Patel and fellow SSWANA Center student staffer Sameeha Chowdhury outlined their free speech concerns in an internal report. UO’s student government — via center secretary Sophia Barghouti and communications director Jai Pandhoh — later circulated highlights of the report in a news release.

Tensions had been simmering since the summer before, when the coalition members who had fought for the center’s launch learned that UO had begun hiring student staff without notifying them.

“That was kind of one turning point of like, ‘This is how it’s going to be now,’” Pandhoh said. “It started like that. We weren’t told about this. They’re already taking over.”

The report and news release largely stem from conversations documented in meeting minutes between student staff; UO’s student government; Multicultural Center Director Dinorah Ortiz-Carte, who oversees the SSWANA Center; and Black Cultural Center Director Aris Hall.

Among Patel and Chowdhury’s concerns: the university restricting student staff from posting a student documentary about the center’s origins on its Instagram account; administrators allegedly requesting that the center modify its logo and have it include the Israeli flag; and a ban on the center posting or otherwise taking a public stance on political issues, including conflict in the Middle East.

Administrators have given students vague and unclear explanations for decisions about the center’s programming and messaging throughout, Patel and Barghouti said. 

“They just want a simple cultural org that does nothing but like, have tea, and that’s it,” said Barghouti, who is Lebanese and Palestinian. “It’s much more than that, because our culture currently, with everything that’s happening with the global crisis, is being ripped up to shreds.”

Lookout requested to interview Ortiz-Carte and Hall, but was instead referred to Howard and Justine Carpenter, UO’s associate dean of students and director of community and belonging. 

The administrators said they weren’t familiar with specific allegations. University leadership supports students’ individual rights to free speech, and encourages center staff to host dialogues about political issues, just not to take a public stance on them, Howard and Carpenter said.

“Part of the focus for us is on advocacy,” Carpenter said. “For our students, it might be more outwardly protesting. But for us, advocacy really starts with education.”

The center is not yet fully funded and shares leadership and meetings with the Multicultural Center. Its contract for space in the EMU will expire after next year, leaving students uncertain about its future.

But they hope the SSWANA Center will one day stand apart from UO’s student life umbrella as a fully funded department with a long-term space and its own program director. 

“You can’t just assume that if you win something, that’s the end of it,” Barghouti said. “You have to keep going and keep fighting for it.”

Grace Chinowsky graduated from The George Washington University with a degree in journalism. She served as editor-in-chief of the university’s independent student newspaper, The GW Hatchet, and interned at CNN and MSNBC. Grace covers Eugene’s city government and the University of Oregon.