In the face of DEI rollbacks and literature changes, students across campus have been picking up the slack. One of these students is Javaria White, the current director of diversity for the Northern Iowa Student Government (NISG). White is a senior on campus, double majoring in psychology and social work, and minoring in mental health. She says that the role mainly consists of helping student orgs on campus. “I would say, mostly my role as the director of diversity has shifted a lot since the DEI changes, because part of my role was to work closely with those DEI faculty and staff. Since I can’t do that anymore, it’s become more of me creating the multicultural council. Part of my initiative is maintaining those connections with the CME and all the other multicultural orgs. There used to be all these events and programs that they put on up there. I’m not able to do all that on my own. I’m just one person.” 

White first got involved with NISG in 2023, but never expected to take on such a heavy responsibility. “In the fall 2023 semester, the Board of Directors for the Racial/Ethnic Affairs position had opened up and one of my peers was the Director of Mental Health. They were telling me a little bit about their role, and I just thought, like, ‘Oh my gosh, how cool.’ So I applied for that and ended up getting that role and did some work there with the CME staff and worked pretty closely with the previous Director of Diversity. They left that role early, so that role needed to be filled. I thought I would be a great fit there, so I applied and was in that position for one semester. I loved what I was doing, so I reapplied and got reelected.”

Last semester, the Center for Multicultural Education was largely restructured and many of the staff that White had worked so closely with were moved into new positions or let go. “There’s not really a community up in the CME anymore. I find that a lot of students are coming to me and asking me things like ‘How do you think we can fix it?’ or ‘How can we make it better?’. Students have been turning away from the CME. It’s not as lively as it was before. We really just want people to still be coming up and enjoying the space. Do homework or eat lunch there, the space is there to be used.”

While her job description has shifted a lot in the last year, White has stayed steady in her path to help support students. She is in her second term with NISG and is taking the changes in stride saying, “We were really active over there in the CME. I was working closely with the CME staff in the fall. When I was a freshman coming in, that was the first place that I was introduced to that had that sense of home for me. I have always been very connected there. Now I am wanting to make that ‘home’ still be present so new people coming to campus know that it’s a good space.  I want to just be a student advocate and advocate for people who can’t do that for themselves or people who might find it hard to speak out for themselves. That’s been going pretty well. We collaborated with a bunch of the multicultural orgs last semester and we’ve got some things in the works to keep that going this spring semester.”

White encourages students to stay involved on campus and in their communities. She also emphasized the importance of staying positive in the changing times. “It’s hard right now, but it’s a law. There is, obviously, nothing you can do against a law. But, I know the communities have the courage and the strive to want these things to be here. Don’t be afraid of being uncomfortable. Get your voice out there. Our student government is here for the students. Any way that the students want us to advocate for them, we will do that. You just have to let us know what you need. I think students coming together with other students can be really powerful. To be honest everybody’s multicultural. Like you can be a woman and be white, that makes you multicultural. Diversity is just being different like that’s all. It’s not about being Black or Hispanic or Asian or whatever. It’s just about being different, so everybody holds some form of diversity and I think that’s not being represented well.”