In December, the University of Alabama suspended two student magazines, Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six. Last week, many of the students behind the two canceled publications successfully published the first issues of two new magazines, Selene and Sixty-Three.
Staff at the two original publications were told the university’s decision had been made because they had used “unlawful proxies,” the editor-in-chief of Alice told APR during an interview shortly after the suspensions. A July 2025 memo from then-U.S. attorney general Pam Bondi defined unlawful proxies as “ostensibly neutral criteria that function as substitutes for explicit consideration of race, sex, or other protected characteristics.”
Both publications did in fact have target audiences, but the university’s student paper, The Crimson White, reported that Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six had each hired staff members from outside of their target audiences.
After Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six were suspended, Democratic members of Congress Terri Sewell and Shomari Figures as well as free speech groups described the administration’s decision as an infringement on students’ rights. In March, eight students filed a lawsuit against the University of Alabama president and board of trustees on First Amendment grounds.
Additionally, a fundraiser organized by the nonprofit MASTHEAD raised almost $30,000 to pay for two new magazines, later titled Selene and Sixty-Three, to be written, edited and designed by many of the affected students.
An epigraph to Selene reads:
We cannot be stopped.
And we cannot be silenced.
On Dec. 1, 2025, the University of Alabama made a decision to permanently suspend the schools’ two magazines, Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice. Publications that gave voices to students of color and women—two marginalized groups on its campus.
The former staff of these publications created new magazines, independent of the university, Sixty-Three and Selene.
The editors-in-chief of Alice and Nineteen Fifty-Six each serve as editor-in-chief of one of the new publications, Selene and Sixty-Three, respectively. Both magazines focus on many of the same topics that the suspended ones covered.
Selene’s debut issue includes articles on “Goddess of Pop” Cher, misogyny in STEM education, and the role of women in our understanding of Shakespeare, among other topics.
The first issue of Sixty-Three features articles about the creation of Nineteen Fifty-Six, the role of food in contemporary Black culture, and the importance of self-care, as well as a themed crossword.
MASTHEAD is currently conducting a fundraiser to publish two additional issues of each of the new magazines during the 2026-2027 school year.
