On April 7, two days before DragUMania's events started, higher-ups at Educational Outreach and Student Services at ASU, who help create and monitor student clubs and organizations, informed Drag U Downtown club members that their events would be postponed indefinitely.

The news came suddenly and shocked students who had been preparing for months to bring together a series of events celebrating drag and LGBTQ+ culture at Arizona State University's Downtown Phoenix campus.

Drag U Downtown was set to host a drag show, a brunch with drag queens and a movie screening of the film "Paris is Burning," a documentary about drag queens living in New York City finding a sense of community and support. After the movie screening, attendees would have a chance to do a Q&A with drag performers.

Dia Granillo, a Drag U Downtown club committee member, described her reaction to the postponement of the events as "pure shock."

"I thought that it was a joke," Granillo said. "I thought that it was a really bad joke by one of my friends because my friends told me. When I heard this, I thought that surely ASU, a community that fosters inclusion and acceptance for all, would not cancel an event like this. After hearing the reasoning given, I was also left in a state of confusion because I didn't fully understand."

ASU’s published reasoning for the sudden cancellation confused the ASU community further. The committee members were told there were issues with the security measures for the event, despite having done a security walk-through with the EOSS Dean of Students, Dean Dotson.

The Drag U Downtown club was also told by EOSS that they submitted an event registry form 13 days before the event instead of 14 days prior. While the movie screening form was submitted 13 days before the event, missing the deadline by just one day had never created issues before, according to Granillo.

While ASU has not made a public statement about the postponing of the events, students remain unsure if the decision means cancellation in disguise.

"The faculty in Tempe and some of the higher-ups at EOSS were very reluctant to give an answer, and honestly, it took a very long time for us to get any clear answers as to who wants this event canceled." Jackson Hamblin, another committee member, said.

Many of the drag performers had already taken days off of work, traveled long distances and invested time and money to take part in these events. Club members had also spent money, time and other resources on the production of these events.

Melanie Ochoa, the club's marketing and social media lead, confirmed that, as of the last update, the club had spent about $70,000 on the events.

"It felt very disheartening to me," Ochoa said. "I had put hours upon hours of work into the marketing for this event, of course. I spent quite a lot of nights, both all-nighters and near-all-nighters, just kind of working. It just felt like everything I had worked for went to waste like that, just because of some minor technicalities."

The Drag U Downtown club has been hosting events for the past four years. This is the first year they have had to postpone their events.

Members of the Drag U Downtown Club spend their first few years learning from mentors. When they are seniors, they finally get a chance to help plan and lead the events, according to Granillo.

"To see our seniors who are involved in the organization having it taken away from them when they have been waiting for it is really disheartening to see,” Granillo said. “It's really sad to see because I feel as though they are not gonna be given the chance to do something they've worked many years for."

Students and committee members alike remain confused about the postponement of the events.

"In my opinion," Hamblin said. "It definitely feels like the cancellation of this event is targeted towards our pride week events, especially with Drag U Downtown being one of the largest drag shows that ASU hosts every year."

Jacob Dunn, a senior at ASU and one of the students who led the preparation for this spring semester's Drag U Downtown events, was particularly affected by the postponements.

"It's very heartbreaking for our student lead right now to find out he has to cancel the drag show when he himself has worked on it for at least four years, and he won't be able to be a part of it next year now that he will be graduating," Hamblin said.

Hamblin went on to express how the situation has affected him personally and how the situation has shifted his perspective on the university's leadership.

"Personally, this has really altered the way I view the university and the higher-ups that work with all of our events," Hamblin said. "Through this challenge, I've definitely seen two very different sides of some of our faculty, but I will say that there's been a lot of support from some of the downtown campus faculty, for which we're eternally grateful. This cancellation just two days prior feels very disrespectful, and I'm just very disappointed with the way this has been handled by the higher-ups."