Governor Gavin Newsom passed Senate Bill 447 earlier this year and recently, Contra Costa Community College District has adopted the bill. The bill repeals Assembly Bill 1887, which was passed in 2016 and prevented the funding of travel to states that enacted anti-LGBTQ+ legislation. But with this new law being passed, California is now taking a different approach.
When AB 1887 was originally passed, only a few states were prohibited for travel due to its legislature targeting the LGBTQ+ community. But in the years since, the number had shot up to 26 states in total and had become a great hindrance to many colleges as well as California’s economy. The reasoning for this lies in the fact that many tours offered by Los Medanos College would be hosted in a prohibited state, including trips to historically black colleges and universities.
In recognition of this among other issues, SB 447 was passed to repeal the previous act and the district adopted the bill in a resolution passed Oct. 11. The rescission affirmed 4CD’s support for the LGBTQ+ community and any future bills put forward that supports the community. This rescission also addresses the prior resolution surrounding AB 1887.
“4CD Governing board adopts this rescission to resolution No. 19C and continues to promote and model an atmosphere of respect for all students and employees and denounces discrimination and hate speech directed at students and/or employees,” said 4CD’s Governing board in Resolution 22C.
With the documents approval, LMC can now plan trips to these formerly prohibited states. As California reshifts its focus to a program to educate these states on how discriminatory these laws can be, LMC now looks forward to planning tours to prestigious HBCUs that they haven’t been able to for several years. As these tours have been heavily affected due to the college following AB 1887, LMC’s Office of Equity and Inclusion’s Interim Dean Rosa Armendariz estimated just how much this travel ban affected the school.
“I’d say we lost 3/4ths of the campuses that we could visit,” Armendariz said.
Aside from the future plans for these tours, which isn’t expected to be scheduled until 2025, Armendariz was proud of how California acted to protect the LGBTQ+ community originally in 2016. She also expressed similar pride for the rescission and California’s shift in policy. The same pride was expressed by President Pamela Ralston, who says that the issue put forward by AB 1887 has been discussed by both the district and the state long before the bill was introduced.
“Earlier this year, we started having conversations about how AB 1887 and our board policy kept students who were involved in HBCU tours from visiting states under the ban. Where some of the most powerful and exciting HBCUs are,” Ralston said.
Ralston was in support of AB 1887 originally and with this rescission, she looks towards the future with happiness for the students, but intrigue for the state.
“I’m interested to see how the tides have changed in this idea of thinking about showing California to be more of this positive essence. So I’m supportive of this new move,” Ralston said.
Students at LMC are reacting as well. Some, such as Jayden Hawkins and Pride Alliances President Jordan Ramey, hadn’t heard about the ban and its rescission until recently. Yet the same support shown by the district is also on display in the student body.
“I’m really happy that we are educating these states,” Hawkins said.
“I’m amazed at the progress we have made as a community,” said Ramey while adding, “Education is better than ignoring.”
