By Noah Walters

The Daily Mississippian

The University of Mississippi is pulling all affiliated resources and involvement in the 2025 Oxford Pride Parade in an effort to comply with the new Mississippi law restricting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in public schools.

The parade will go on as planned this Saturday at 2 p.m. as part of the wider Oxford Pride events, which are themed “Defying Gravity” this year. It will start and end at the Oxford-University Depot. The Justice for Jay Lee organization has been named the honorary grand marshal.

Unlike prior years, however, the university will not assist with the parade as the institution grapples with the impact of Mississippi House Bill 1193. The bill prohibits DEI statements and practices in public K-12 and postsecondary schools, disallowing the promotion of “transgender ideology,” pronouns and the usage of DEI programs within these institutions, among other things. HB 1193 was approved by Gov. Tate Reeves on April 17 after passing both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature.

“The 2025 Oxford Pride Parade will continue with support from many community partners. This year, the university has paused its institutional support as leadership evaluates the impact of new state legislation on university involvement in events and activities,” Jacob Batte, director of news and media relations at the university, said. “The university remains committed to fostering a welcoming environment for all while ensuring compliance with state law.”

The first Oxford Pride Parade was launched by the UM Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies in 2016. According to the Oxford Pride website, “Oxford Pride was created to give LGBTQIA+ students, faculty, staff and their allies a highly visible and inclusive community event during the academic school year to make them feel welcome and a part of the larger LOU (Lafayette-Oxford-University) community. The goals and objectives of Oxford Pride are to continue to provide a space for inclusion and learning about the university’s and Oxford’s queer community through a combination of social and academic programming.”

Oxford Pride shared an Instagram post on Tuesday, April 29, addressing the shift in support from UM. The post indicated the university is communicating with the Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL), the governing board of the eight public universities in Mississippi, to understand how HB 1193 will impact higher learning across the state.

“While all Pride events will take place as scheduled, university leadership has directed the Sarah Isom Center and other university entities to step back from their institutional involvement with the 2025 Oxford Pride Parade while they study the new HB 1193 law and await guidance from IHL on how we can continue to support everyone on our campus,” Oxford Pride said in the post.

The Sarah Isom Center shared the same message on its social media the same day.

According to Oxford Pride, the pause in institutional support means resources such as golf carts for those with mobility issues will no longer be provided by UM. It also means that no department, school, division, college or center affiliated with the university will be allowed to officially participate in or promote the events of the week.

The university has been a fiscal sponsor of Pride in the past, according to Sarah Isom Center Program Coordinator and Coordinator of Community Engaged Learning and Research Kevin Cozart. After the university stepped back from assisting in Pride Week this year, Oxford Pride opened a GoFundMe. He said the GoFundMe goal of $5,000 is to cover “general expenses related to Pride stuff.”

Oxford Pride’s donation goal was surpassed on Wednesday, April 30.

“As previously announced, our university partners are barred from helping this year. Therefore, we are turning to the people of Mississippi and beyond to help us cover the expected and unexpected costs as we have to quickly shift gears after Pride Week has already begun,” Oxford Pride said in an Instagram post on Wednesday.

In the absence of official university support, two student organizations, UMPride Network and OUTGrads, have become the official sponsors of Oxford Pride.

“We were already deeply invested in Pride Week as a whole, so the decision to take over the parade was a no-brainer,” Brooke Skolsky, a junior psychology major from Brookhaven, Miss., and president of UMPride Network, said. “We wanted to get the parade out there in any way we can, as it is such an important thing for queer students at the university.”

For Skolsky, the university’s response came as a shock.

“We knew that it was a possibility that the bill would be passed, but we did not think that it would impact Pride or that the university would bend to the bill so quickly,” Skolsky said. “I personally think that the university is not standing up for its queer students, and it shows their unwillingness to go against a pretty vague bill. Overall, UMPride Network is trying to show both Oxford and the university that you cannot forget about us that easily.”

For Paul Mora, a graduate student and representative for OUTGrads, the university’s response is frustrating.

“I am angry — plain and simple. There is nothing any elected official in Jackson or the Lyceum can say to make me change my answer,” Mora said. “I thought I knew what it felt like to feel targeted. I was an active-duty Army soldier who served openly in all-male combat units for six years, including a tour in Baghdad, Iraq, during the height of the occupation. All of that came with greater risk because the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy was in place. What’s odd is seeing the rollout of these new policies at the federal and state level and watching the university administration cave. It feels worse than the risk of serving openly under one policy years ago.”

In his assessment of the new policy and the university’s response, Mora drew on his military experience in making the case against HB 1193.

“The military teaches you to work together, work through your differences, and you will succeed together. The military has shown us that inclusive policies or practices have not impacted readiness at the unit level in any war. The military has not crumbled from those policies,” Mora said. “What are you supposed to think when your university is co-signing to policies that make life more complicated for different communities at the place you decided to call home for two years, four years or longer?”

Mora hopes the university will take greater strides in making Oxford’s LGBTQ+ community feel welcomed.

“I hope young student leaders learn from the hurdles put in place, recognize they will be higher next year and prepare to jump those hurdles by planning ahead,” Mora said. “I would also like to challenge Chancellor Boyce and others in the university administration to take the time to meet with members of the LGBTQ+ community and their allies, including local business leaders. Learn why these events are important and have appeal. Establishing the chancellor’s standing committees and logging meeting minutes isn’t enough.”

In the wake of this development, Phillip “Pip” Gordon, a UM alum, adviser for the UM Pride Network and visiting assistant professor of gender studies, has called for LGBTQ+ student organizations to show up to Saturday’s parade.

Gordon said the hope is that LGBTQ+ students and allies will encourage other students to join the march in large numbers, creating a “student section.”

“The University of Mississippi has multiple student organizations that serve our diverse, dynamic and vibrant student body, including several organizations for queer students and allies,” Gordon said.

Gordon hopes the collaboration among the organizations encourages all students to unify at the parade.

“These organizations all foster a strong sense of inclusion and belonging, and for this weekend’s parade, we wanted to create a space for students from all these organizations — and from across our university — to support each other by marching in solidarity for the values that make our university a great public institution,” Gordon said. “We welcome all students to join us.”

This story was originally published by The Daily Mississippian.