For the better part of a decade, the state of California refused to fund travel to states that enacted laws described as discriminatory against the LGBTQ+ community. 

With Gov. Gavin Newsom having signed into law Senate Bill 447, which repealed Assembly Bill 1887, a travel ban against states with discriminatory laws is no longer in effect. While in law, AB 1887 prohibited the state of California from allowing state-funded travel to states that had laws viewed as discriminatory to the LGBTQ+ community as well as prohibiting state employees from being required to to travel to these states. 

At the time of AB 1887 being passed into the California legislature, the bill showed promise with only eight states being on the travel ban list. However, as time went on and more states enacted laws that discriminate against those who are LGBTQ+, the list of the states more than tripled to 26 states in which California would not provide funding for state agency trips. Majority of these states on this list were home to Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

With the travel ban list growing to over half of all states earlier this year, repealing AB 1887 was a good thing to happen. Refusing to fund travel to over half the states in the United States was the wrong way to handle the situation and show support to the LGTBQ+ community.

The long list of states California would not provide funding to had a trickle down effect to colleges. Many trips to nationwide events as well as HBCUs were limited due to AB 1887 and forced many organizers that planned years in advance to attend events in these states to back out and lose money. 

While the travel bans intended purpose was to financially cripple states that discriminated against LGTBQ+ communities, the contrary occurred with California being financially affected negatively. Also many college students and other California citizens missed out on big events because funding would not be approved by a state with discrimination laws.

Instead of a travel ban, the Building and Reinforcing Inclusive, Diverse, Gener-Supportive Equality Project has helped replace the travel restriction with an outreach campaign with the goal to help educate the states on why it’s bad to pass anti-LGBTQ+ legislation.

While it is important to understand the overall goal of combating discrimination and anti-LGBTQ+ laws, a campaign educating states on the subject is a much better solution than prohibiting funding towards over half the states in the United States.