Virginia Tech is closing two of its living-learning communities that were intended to support minority groups. LLCs are on-campus dorms where students also attend a class together, and they’re intended to help students feel more connected with like-minded peers.
Robert Ellis was a high school student when he first visited Virginia Tech. As a young Black man, he remembers what it was like when someone told him, there’s a living-learning community called Ujima, which focuses on Africana studies, and Black identity and culture.
“I was like, almost immediately, sign me up,” Ellis said.
Ujima is a Swahili word that means collective work and responsibility. In class, Ellis and other Ujima students learned about the impacts Black people around the world have made. On weekends and evenings, they often share their own stories.
“It’s brought about an experience that I can’t really compare to anything else—unity,” Ellis said. “It’s something that I’m grateful for and I’ll be able to carry for the rest of my life.”
Ellis is now a sophomore in Ujima, along with 187 other students. In September, Virginia Tech told them Ujima is will close in May.
“It sucks knowing what I experienced, the things that changed my life, the students who look like me who come after me, simply won’t be able to,” Ellis said. “It’s getting stripped away from them simply because there’s policies in place that they can’t control.”
Three other LLCs are also closing, including Lavender house, which is focused on LGBTQ history and identity.
“Losing that space is going to be a huge blow to our ability to have an interconnected community at Virginia Tech for queer people,” said Lilly, a former resident of Lavender House who identifies as trans. She only wanted to use her first name in this story because she’s worried about retaliation for speaking out. In high school, she faced bullying and discrimination, but in Lavender house, she was able to feel less isolated and make close friends.
“It was very easy to connect and start to heal those wounds that had formed in high school because it was such a tight-knit community where I felt like people really understood me,” Lilly said.
In an email to Radio IQ, university spokesperson Mark Owczarski said the decision to close the LLCs was made for a number of reasons, including academic and budgetary reviews as well as guidance from the Department of Justice. Also, the Virginia Tech Board of Visitors passed a resolution back in March to close the University’s office that promoted diversity and inclusion.
“Effective the fall 2026 semester, Virginia Tech will no longer offer the Lavender House and Ujima living learning communities,” Owczarski said in an emailed statement. “This decision was made with thoughtful reflection and care, recognizing the meaningful experiences and connections that have defined both communities and to support ongoing efforts to improve academic programming in ways that support inclusive, enriching, and academically grounded opportunities for all university students. All students in these communities this year will not be impacted. The residential experiences and academic course that correspond to the program will continue until the end of the Spring 2026 semester.”
Most public universities across the Commonwealth have made some type of change to DEI programs this year, following pressure by both the Trump and the Youngkin administrations. Some, like the University of Virginia and George Mason University, have been investigated by the Department of Justice for not going far enough to dissolve DEI programs.
LLCs at Virginia Tech are open to all students. The other LLCs that are closing are focused on social activism and science.
Virginia Tech also recently announced they are dropping the requirement that all undergraduate students take a class that teaches equity and a number of racial and social identity issues.
Students who spoke with Radio IQ said they worry what other programs and resources may be cut.
Jayden King is a senior and the president of the Black Organizations Council at Virginia Tech, a student organization housed within the Black Cultural Center. He’s worried the cultural centers may be the next targets.
He was previously a resident of Ujima. “There’s many people, including myself, who came to Virginia Tech because Ujima existed.”
He grew up in Atlanta, where there is more racial diversity than in Southwest Virginia. “I was a little bit worried coming into the mountains in Virginia, and Ujima gave me that sense of comfort, that there was a sense of community, that I’d be able to find people who are like minded who made me feel like home.”
He said having places for minority students is especially important on campuses like Virginia Tech, where a majority of students are white.
“Every single class you might be the only Black student, or one of three Black students. It is a small minority of students who will look down upon Black students, but it is a loud minority. And that’s why it can have an impact on Black students,” Ellis explained.
“It can be so comforting at the end of the day to go back to the place where you rest your head and have the sense of community to go into a lounge, you know, connect with other students who aren’t going to look down upon you. Similar to how Lavender house was for LGBTQ students, who were discriminated against outside of that community,” Ellis said.
Junior Cassidy McDonough said the news that the university is closing Lavender house and Ujima, as well as the resolution the BOV passed in the spring, makes her feel less welcome on campus.
“It just, to me, and to others, this feels like ‘your safety, your ability to succeed, your comfortability on campus don’t matter to us,’” said McDonough, who identifies as non-binary. Though they love their academic program, McDonough is considering transferring.
“I’m really disappointed with the university and I would rather go somewhere else, even if it’s less prestigious, if it means that I’m going somewhere where they actually care to have me as a student,” McDonough said.
Lilly, the former Lavender house resident, said she hopes more minority students will come forward to share how changes to DEI programs impact them, even if protesting doesn’t change things immediately.
“When they are able to bring it back, we are going to need it back, as soon as possible,” Lilly said. “And this is our way of telling the university to keep an eye out for when they can.”
