AMHERST — Amherst College says it’s just a tidy, “long-planned” shake-up. Everyone else is noticing the inconvenient timing.

After a national uproar over a sex-themed first-year orientation performance at the school, Amherst has now cut multiple Student Affairs positions — including the leader of its Queer Resource Center — according to reporting by the Washington Free Beacon.

WATCH:

Amherst College, founded over two centuries ago to prepare young Christian men for the ministry, has become a hotbed of administratively sanctioned sex performances and "sexual skills" programs, with a focus on "queer" and transgender students and on free-sex practices… pic.twitter.com/1ACSDc4k2x

— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) December 12, 2025

The controversy centered on an official first-year orientation event known as “Voices of the Class,” held in the college’s chapel. The performance drew wide attention after videos and accounts circulated online showing students mimicking sex acts on stage, turning a campus program into a full-blown national story.

Now comes the staffing churn.

The Washington Free Beacon reports Amherst “appears to have laid off” four administrators whose roles sit inside the college’s Student Affairs and student-life infrastructure — the part of campus that shapes the student experience and supports incoming students:

• Hayley Nicholas, head of the Queer Resource Center and Women’s and Gender Center
• Jane Kungu, head of the Multicultural Resource Center
• Shahar Colt, Assistant Director for Religious and Spiritual Life
• Scarlet Im, interim director of the Class and Access Resource Center

Amherst is pushing back on the scandal narrative.

A college spokesperson told the Free Beacon the employees were not “fired,” saying several positions were eliminated in Student Affairs as part of a “long-planned divisional restructuring.” Amherst declined to say which positions were eliminated and did not explain why the changes were not publicly announced.

And there’s more movement up top. Amherst has also announced its Vice President for Communications, Sandy Genelius, will retire in June — a decision the college says was planned and unrelated.

So yes, Amherst wants everyone to believe this is all perfectly ordinary. Just an entirely routine restructuring… arriving right after the most talked-about orientation event in the country.