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A Massachusetts college has suspended its annual trip to Uganda in part because of the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act.

Students and faculty from Lasell College in Newton, Mass., have since 2013 traveled to Bumwalukani, a rural village in southeastern Uganda, to work with students who are studying for their high school entrance exams. The institution partners with Arlington Academy of Hope, a school in Arlington, Va., that John and Joyce Wanda opened a decade ago after emigrating to the U.S. from Uganda.

Michael Alexander, president of Lasell College, told the Washington Blade during a telephone interview last week the controversy surrounding Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act became “apparent on our campus” in April.

Alexander said some suggested the college cancel the trip, but it took place in May as scheduled.

“All the students still wanted to go after discussing the issue,” he told the Blade. “We decided for last May to let it go with the understanding that this fall we would review it, we would get a report of that trip, we would review the situation.”

Those convicted of repeated same-sex sexual acts under the Anti-Homosexuality Act that President Yoweri Museveni signed in February face life in prison. The statute also prohibits “aiding and abetting homosexuality.”

Lasell College earlier this fall hosted a town meeting and a panel discussion on the Anti-Homosexuality Act. A Ugandan gay activist also spoke on the suburban Boston campus.

“We had an open discussion,” said Alexander. “There’s strong arguments on both sides and we went through that.”

Alexander told the Blade a bisexual woman who traveled to Uganda in May said she did not experience any problems while in the country. The college nevertheless decided to cancel next year’s trip because “members of our community who are gay said they would feel diminished or devalued if the institution sponsored a trip to a place that was so openly anti-gay where people are being persecuted.”

“That was difficult to refute,” said Alexander.

Alexander added concerns over the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and terrorist groups operating in countries that border Uganda also factored into the decision to cancel the 2015 trip.

College would reconsider decision if ‘conditions on the ground change’

Uganda’s Constitutional Court in August struck down the Anti-Homosexuality Act, arguing it passed in the country’s Parliament late last year without the necessary quorum.

Ugandan lawmakers have said they plan to reintroduce the measure.

The Obama administration earlier this year cut or redirected aid to Uganda and announced a travel ban against Ugandan officials responsible for human rights abuses. The World Bank shortly after Museveni signed the Anti-Homosexuality Act announced it had temporarily postponed a $90 million to the Ugandan government.

Museveni earlier this month criticized Western governments over their “hostility” towards his country and calls to cut foreign aid. He nevertheless acknowledged the Anti-Homosexuality Act may adversely impact the Ugandan economy.

Alexander told the Blade the college “would be willing to consider going” to Uganda again if “conditions on the ground change.”

“There is a possibility if conditions change there,” he said. “We’d be willing to reconsider.”