Texas s War on DEI | City Journal
States across the country are cracking down on diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in higher education. But even as some legislatures successfully ban DEI on public campuses, some schools have tried to skirt the rules.
Texas, for example, banned DEI offices and functions at public universities in 2023. To ensure compliance, the state requires public universities to submit annual reports to the legislature and makes similar demands of each school s governing board. Colleges or universities defying the ban must either correct their violations or face financial penalties.
Initially, many Texas universities recognized they were out of compliance and closed their DEI offices. As I document in a report for the Claremont Institute, Texas A&M, once an outspoken DEI proponent, dissolved its Office of Diversity, and removed its website s extensive list of diversity initiatives, directors, and committees. The school s former lead diversity officer now teaches business classes; her chief assistants have been relocated to academic departments. Former DEI deans in dentistry, education, law, and medicine now either teach or have retired. While the school has retained some deans with ambiguous titles such as associate dean for programmatic success and assistant dean for community wellness and engagement, A&M president Mark Welsh deserves credit for broadly complying with the law.
The University of Texas, Austin, on the other hand, has responded to Texas s DEI ban with a mixture of paper compliance, strategic obfuscation, and open defiance. UT rebranded its Division of Diversity and Community Engagement as the Division of Campus and Community Engagement while keeping many of the same personnel. One of the division s programs is called the Center for Access and Restorative Engagement, with access as the new word for equity and restorative engagement a euphemism for inclusion.
The new division builds on UT s mission to promote DEI. The school s two diversity-related strategic plans The Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity and The Change Starts Here Strategic Plan remain active on the school s website. Each plan makes ideological hiring central to UT s mission. In particular, the Faculty plan promises to recruit, retain, and support diverse staff and to promote diversity scholarship.
UT s defiance extends beyond the Austin campus. In 2023, ten of UT s 15 affiliated colleges had publicly available DEI plans or included DEI in their strategic plans. All but two had a DEI committee listed on their websites, and all but two had at least one college-level DEI director or dean.
Scott Yenor, who teaches at Boise State, where he has survived at least one cancellation attempt, probably more.