The Q Spot, an enclosed gathering space for LGBTQ+ students in PJ’s Coffee on Willow Street, has closed, eliciting anger from some queer students who say the spot was an important safe space. Activities associated with the Q Spot will be relocated to the Carolyn Barber-Pierre Center for Intercultural Life, Tulane University spokesperson Michael Strecker said.
“The Q Spot was a really great place on campus, and it meant a lot for students, and I mean specifically LGBT students, to be able to find each other and build community,” senior Rory MacDonald said. MacDonald said the space was especially important for transgender students.
After the spot’s closure, a group of students gathered on Freret Street on Oct. 24, in front of the Navy R.O.T.C Building, to protest against the closure. The Queer Student Alliance, one of the groups that organized the protest, said in a post online that the space was closed abruptly with little community consultation and that they have been given “virtually no information” on what the new spot will be or look like.
Strecker said student organizations using the Q Spot were contacted before the closures in August to make a plan for continued programming.
“This transition was an opportunity to reimagine how the community builds and sustains connections and to co-create a space that reflects current needs and aspirations. Student Affairs staff have been working directly with student organizations to ensure a smooth transition and continued access to resources,” Strecker said.
QSA president senior Billy Bernfeld described the Q Spot as a “monument” to queer student life, and said he was blindsided by the university’s approach to the closing.
The QSA called the new location in the Center for Intercultural Life “unsuitable” and “essentially a locker room.”
“They [Tulane] put all the furniture from the Q Spot in like a cubby, essentially in the hallway outside the Center for Intercultural Life,” MacDonald said. “Tulane is making it very clear where their priorities are, and it’s not a safe space for LGBT students.”
“This [new] space is clearly not meant to replace or emulate the Q Spot, nor is it even an enclosed space to begin with. We reject the attempt to sugarcoat the closing of the Q Spot and its continued impact on LGBTQ+ students,” the online statement released by QSA said.
The closure of the Q Spot comes after the university shuttered offices tied to diversity, equity and inclusion. In a letter to the Tulane community, President Mike Fitts explained that the decision to close the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and the Office of Gender and Sexual Diversity came in response to the Trump administration’s warning that the university could lose more than $320 million in federal funding.
The OGSD previously oversaw the QSA, a responsibility that has since been transferred to the CIL.
Andy, who only agreed to give his first name, a transgender law student, said he originally chose Tulane because of its emphasis on queer rights, but now he said he thinks Tulane is folding under pressure from the Trump administration.
“The main thing that’s so concerning about it is that it’s more like another step in a chain of events that’s been happening,” Andy said. “It feels like another rolling back of queer rights for queer students, which is really concerning given the current administration, the government … It really just feels like Tulane saying that their priorities are elsewhere than protecting queer students.”
“We have to fight for the resources that people need to have a presence on campus. It’s been made abundantly clear to me that we as students are all we’ve got,” MacDonald said.
Strecker said Tulane “remains committed to maintaining strong support systems” as the Center for International Life absorbs the Q Spot.