This capstone project examines how campus-wide statements and symbolic institutional communications like cultural heritage celebrations shape perceptions of inclusion and sense of belonging among students with marginalized racial and gender/sexual identities. Situated within the current political context, presidential messaging has been influenced by a rapidly shifting legal landscape marked by executive orders, lawsuits, and federal guidance including the recent Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education. This examination of presidential and university communications draws on frameworks like campus ecology, Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, and interpretivism. These lenses provide a frame for interrogating institutional structures and organizational factors that influence how universities and university leaders communicate. Recommendations based on this review include collaborative practices guided by Shared Equity Leadership concepts, critical personal reflections, integration of student counterstories, and message development processes that include the university community. Ultimately, presidential and university communications that center students and their inclusion contribute to an environment hospitable to the development of sense of belonging.