I remember walking down what was then Diversity Way, one of the main walkways connecting the eastern and western sides of Florida Atlantic’s Boca Raton campus. The walkway wasn’t unusual: a few benches, some trees, and occasionally a guy holding up a poster for students to sign a random petition.

Almost every day, I never even noticed that the path had a name until I saw one of the signs. Immediately, I would realize that this path wasn’t just a way of getting to class; it was also one of the most vivid reflections about what FAU represents: Diversity. However, on June 10, Florida Atlantic’s Board of Trustees quietly approved renaming the walkway to Opportunity Way.

This movement replaced the once beloved Diversity Way signs that proudly hung above various lamp-posts throughout the walkway. Home to more than 2,600 international students representing 112 countries, according to data from FAU International Student Services, this fall semester. Diversity isn’t just an advertisement, it’s a reality. Diversity Way’s replacement doesn’t reflect the opportunities expressed by the rebrand, but rather, a step away fro the students the school once boasted about welcoming on campus.

I was three years old when I immigrated from Bogotá, Colombia, to Boca Raton, Fla. Through my grandfather’s efforts, we could petition for citizenship and obtain it in only five years. Although I have had the privilege of being an American citizen for most of my life, I have had to watch how others from immigrant families are treated differently for the inflections in their voices when saying “hello” or for the food that they eat.

Since 2010, the path has been named Diversity Way as a reclamation of these attitudes that have historically left immigrant students out. But now, what was meant to reflect the school’s diverse student body spirit embodies a different identity. Sheryl Dezeme, a senior and former FAU Student Government pro-tempore, shared that small changes like these have prompted her to question the safety of students like herself.

Dezeme explained that at several points within her college journey at the university, she has felt discriminated against for being an African-American woman. She thinks that changing the school’s branding away from protecting diverse student populations opens space for more people to do the same to other students. Dezeme wonders, like I do, where these students are left to go.

“In my eyes, diversity creates opportunities; it’s not the other way around,” Dezeme said.”If you feel welcome, that will make you want to engage and be a part of this community.”

However, University President Adam Hasner stated in the June Board of Trustees meeting that this change isn’t necessarily a move away from representing their students, but rather a strategic move towards promoting itself as an “opportunity” university.

“I would also share that Opportunity Way symbolizes the journey that begins for our students at Florida Atlantic, and it’s a path defined, not by labels but by the opportunities that we provide and the achievements that we all reach together,” said Hasner at the meeting when he announced the signage change.

According to a University Press article, the new addition to the signs comes from FAU’s 2025 designations both as an R1 institution and an “Opportunity College and University” by Carnegie Classification. But changes to the school’s marketing centered around diversity aren’t new. Staff quietly took down the Diversity Way signs without public notice. A university spokesperson, Lisa Metcalf, stated via email that Facilities Management removed the banners along the walkway in late February.

“The banners were removed in preparation for installing new banners as part of the updated branding,” Met-calf told the University Press on March 25. This signage removal may be related to a strategic update, as the university announced a change to its visual identity last year, shifting from “FAU” to “Florida Atlantic.”

In 2024, the Center for Inclusion, Diversity Education, and Advocacy, which served as the Boca Raton campus’s diversity center, was shut down after a statewide ban on public funds for DEI programming, leaving many students who depended on that space behind. But Florida Atlantic isn’t the only school changing its representation of diversity on campus. Similarly, the University of Florida’s Diversity and Inclusion programs were shut down in 2024, cutting over $5 million from DEI initiatives, according to the school’s memo released on March 1, 2024.

Juan Peña Izaguirre, former director of FAU’s Center for IDEAs, left the university about a year before it was shut down. He explained that he had to start facing the truth when he began to notice a political shift against space. Izaguirre referred to changes made to protections for diversity education in 2023, including Senate Bill 266, which banned Florida universities from using publiec funds for DEI initiatives.

Izaguirre, born in Mexico and raised in Nebraska, understood what it meant to come from an immigrant background and felt the need to use his experiences to uplift college students during his time at Florida Atlantic. However, in navigating this change to the political climate, cuts to his department felt like a slap in the face.

“I had to look at myself and ask myself: Is this where I want to fight the good fight, or is this where I’m like ‘Hey, do I save myself now,’ because changes are being made that I can’t see and I’m not a part of that can affect me,” Izaguirre said.

Although FAU’s Center for IDEAS had only a $400,000 annual budget, according to a higher education program and activity survey, its presence was important to students across the board. When the center officially closed in 2024, it became clear that the effects of the larger wave of anti-DEI legislation had finally reached FAU.

As officials changed the signage of the walkway, this move washed away one of the university’s last hints of diversity promotion on campus, leaving students to find new ways to feel represented.

Oneya Okuwobi, a professor and researcher of diversity at the University of Cincinnati, fears that although adapting Diversity Way to Opportunity Way could be seen as a positive change, it might not take into account the “barriers and obstacles that students face in terms of being on campus, staying on campus, and being successful at graduating.”

In her book Who Pays for Diversity?, Okuwobi identifies the commodification of racial identity, which allows institutions to benefit from DEI programs without doing the genuine work to support these communities.

“Anytime you are going to make efforts that make students feel criminalized on their own campuses, you are getting in the way of their ability to achieve on that campus,” Okuwobi said. “And that is in very direct opposition to what higher education institutions say that they’re for.”

Diversity Way hasn’t just been about the commute across campus; it has been about reflecting the spirit of the school’s students. Without it, it becomes clear that FAU is falling through in its commitment to its immigrant students, leaving them in the dust.

Gabriela Quintero is the Managing Editor for the University Press. For more information on this or other stories, email Quintero at gquintero2022@fau.edu