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A tidal wave of state legislation to diminish diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts intended to help recruit and retain underrepresented students in higher education has resulted in only a handful of laws to date, according to a Chronicle analysis.
Of the 38 bills in 21 states that The Chronicle is tracking, five have been signed into law and one awaits the governor’s signature. With many state legislative sessions done for the year, 26 bills have so far failed somewhere along the legislative process, although they could return in future sessions.
But critics of diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, who argue that such programs are costly to taxpayers, discriminatory, and infringe on academic freedom, claimed major victories in Florida and Texas, where DEI offices at public colleges could soon close.
Many of the anti-DEI bills around the country took their cues from model state legislation proposed in January by the conservative Goldwater and Manhattan Institutes, which argued in favor of dismantling what they call the diversity, equity, and inclusion bureaucracy at public colleges by banning DEI offices, staff, and programs, diversity statements, mandatory diversity training, and preferences in hiring or admission based on characteristics such as race and gender. The authors of the model legislation said that typical DEI training “rejects the basic American premise that everyone should be treated equally” and that DEI “has morphed into a state-subsidized ideology of grievance, racial division, and anti-Americanism.”
Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute and one of the authors of the model legislation, expressed wonder at how quickly state legislators have taken up the legislation to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion in higher education. “Going from zero to that in less than a half a year, I think it can’t be understated how important it is,” Shapiro said.
Defenders of DEI programs crowded into state capitols across the country over the past several months — including as recently as this week in Ohio — to protest the bills. Some waited hours to testify that DEI offices provide vital support to underrepresented students, including students of color, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities. They warned that states that eliminate DEI activities will lose students, employees, and grants, even as many colleges are struggling to recruit and retain students.
Politicians have turned DEI into a buzzword, said Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors. “They mischaracterize what DEI does in order to rile up a base that is fueled by fear,” Mulvey said. It is a cynical effort, she said, “to create a boogeyman for political purposes.”
The bills to restrict DEI vary across states. In Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, declared in January that it’s where “woke goes to die,” public colleges will be forbidden, as of July 1, from spending federal or state funds on programs or activities that advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, also a Republican, this week signed into law Senate Bill 17, effective next year, which will ban diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and staff, diversity statements, mandatory diversity training, and giving preference to candidates based on characteristics including race and sex. In North Dakota, a law banning diversity statements and certain kinds of mandatory diversity training will take effect on August 1, while in Tennessee a law banning mandatory implicit bias training took effect in May.
In at least two other states, battles over DEI in higher ed are still raging. In Ohio, state senators voted Thursday to approve a state budget bill that included provisions from Senate Bill 83, which targets diversity efforts. In Wisconsin, Robin J. Vos, speaker of the State Assembly, threatened to cut $32 million in funding to the University of Wisconsin system over two years, about what the system would spend on diversity, equity, and inclusion measures.
“I hope we have the ability to eliminate that spending,” Vos told the Associated Press. “The university should have already chosen to redirect it to something that is more productive and more-broadly supported.”
On Wednesday, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, said he would refuse to sign a budget with such a cut to the university system, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
Even states that haven’t adopted legislation to restrict DEI have felt the impact of the rhetoric. This week, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville announced it would close its diversity, equity, and inclusion division and reallocate those staff and resources to other offices.
Charles F. Robinson, the university’s chancellor, said in an email to the campus that the goal of the “realignment” of university resources was for the departments to work together to “expand programs around access, opportunity, and developing a culture of belonging for all students and employees.”
Public colleges in Florida, Oklahoma, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Mississippi have all been asked to provide an accounting of their spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion.
And several state universities and university systems stopped the use of diversity statements even without legislation in place, including those in Idaho, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. Diversity statements, which ask job applicants and employees seeking promotions to describe how they have contributed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their research, teaching, or service, are controversial even within academe, with critics arguing that they serve as political or ideological litmus tests or that they violate the First Amendment.
Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, expects the challenges to diversity officers’ work to continue. “We don’t anticipate that the attacks are going to slow down,” Russell said. She urges those who support diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, including those in the corporate and nonprofit sectors, to come forward and join the fight. “We know that they care about this work, and now is not the time to sit on the sidelines.”
Politicians have turned DEI into a buzzword. “They mischaracterize what DEI does in order to rile up a base that is fueled by fear.”
Critics of the legislation expect legal challenges to be filed. Many argue that the new laws are intentionally vaguely worded so as to create a chilling effect.
In Florida, for example, Senate Bill 266, effective July 1, says that public colleges “may not expend any state or federal funds to promote, support, or maintain any programs or campus activities that … advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
And in some states, the anti-DEI legislation has come alongside measures to weaken tenure, contributing to an atmosphere where faculty members feel that their jobs are vulnerable, no matter their status.
Professors in Florida, Texas, and even states without new laws, have said they are thinking twice about what they will teach because they fear drawing unwanted attention to themselves or their institutions.
While Florida’s Senate Bill 266 states that general-education core courses “may not distort significant historical events or include a curriculum that teaches identity politics … or is based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities,” Texas’ Senate Bill 17 specifies that its restrictions do not apply to classroom instruction, research, or creative work.
Still, Pat Heintzelman, president of the Texas Faculty Association, has decided to scratch William Faulkner and Flannery O’Connor from her syllabus because she is worried that a student or a student’s parent might object to how the authors write about race. “I don’t know anybody that’s trying to indoctrinate students,” Heintzelman said. “We’re trying to teach students how to think for themselves, how to think critically.”
Anna L. Peterson, a religion professor at the University of Florida at Gainesville, refuses to change what she’s teaching but also recognizes that some of her colleagues — including many without tenure — don’t feel that they have that luxury. “That’s how authoritarianism works, in part through the creation of fear and anticipatory obedience,” said Peterson. As a result, she said, “you win a lot of your goals without having to legally enforce them.”
Many college leaders have been notably quiet — at least in public — in the face of anti-DEI legislation, to the great frustration of some faculty members, although some leaders may have lobbied behind the scenes. Ohio State University’s Board of Trustees’ statement against Senate Bill 83 was a notable exception, and in Utah the sponsor of a bill that would have eliminated DEI offices and staff at public colleges replaced it with a study bill after criticism, including from higher-ed leaders in the state. Some college leaders in states that have not seen anti-DEI legislation have also spoken up.
On college campuses in Texas and Florida, faculty members said administrators have given little to no direction on how the laws will be carried out. Peterson, for example, said she receives emails all the time with guidance and resources on how to deal with artificial intelligence. But on Florida’s new laws, she is still waiting.
Alice Min, a student at the University of Texas at Austin’s Law School, has been working with Texas Students for DEI because she found her school’s work on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging valuable. When she first arrived at the law school last year, she didn’t understand a lot of things that were second nature to her many classmates who had parents or other family members who were lawyers, such as how to study for a law-school exam and how to network.
While the law school offered large workshops on such topics for everyone, the DEI office provided smaller workshops for underrepresented students, Min said. “It’s not preferential treatment,” she said. “It’s a chance for people who don’t have this general knowledge and wealth and connections, who don’t have nepotism, to potentially be on an even playing field.”
She appreciated having a place where students of color can talk to others who can relate to their struggles. “It’s also just nice to know that people do care and want you to feel like you belong,” Min said.
Now that she expects the office to close, Min said she wishes she had used it more often when she had the chance.
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Adrienne Lu
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