June 17, 2023: Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 17 (SB 17) which would come into effect on January 1, 2024.

December 1, 2023: President Jay Hartzell addressed the UT community in an email echoing the university’s compliance with the implementation of SB 17 while assuring that commitments to fostering and celebrating diverse backgrounds will continue. 

December 14, 2023: the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement emailed the UT community announcing its renaming to the “Division of Campus and Community Engagement” and continued commitment to fostering community belonging. 

December 16, 2023: the Texas Orator published a piece about SB 17 entitled “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: In Memoriam.”

Now, in February 2024, UT’s Multicultural Engagement Center (MEC) has closed. The Division of Campus and Community Engagement will try to fill the gap left by the bill. The Gender and Sexuality Center (GSC) is now the Women’s Community Center (WCC). Cultural graduation ceremonies will no longer be funded by the university. 

Do the substitutions and loss of resources for multicultural student organizations, events, ceremonies, and more herald an even bleaker future for diversity and inclusion within Texas education? (Yes.)

Let’s deconstruct what’s going on.

What is Senate Bill 17?

According to Senate Bill 17, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices are now prohibited in Texas higher education public institutions. 

It prohibits institutions from “endors[ing] an ideology that promotes the differential treatment of an individual or group of individuals based on race, color, or ethnicity.” The aim here is to avoid special treatment and promote “color-blind and sex-neutral” hiring practices. However, “color blindness” simply doesn’t work in our current society where racism, prejudice, and discrimination are still rampant. Race blindness disregards and diminishes the struggles of marginalized people. It’s a form of denial in an effort to be “un-racist,” avoiding the uncomfortable acknowledgment that yes, America’s history of racism continues to have lingering effects today. An unwillingness to discuss the reality of racism in our lives is simply dismissive and detrimental to past efforts made to overcome systemic racism. We cannot overcome racism by pretending that it doesn’t exist.

Additionally, SB 17 bans mandatory diversity training and restricts hiring departments’ diversity statements. Did I forget to mention that the existence of DEI employees is also banned? Any employee found to be performing the duties of a DEI office — fostering diversity —  is put on unpaid leave for a year after their first violation. For their second violation, they’re fired and essentially put on a blacklist (for an academic year if they’re on unpaid leave or for 5 years if they were fired)! 

Moreover, universities must comply with this because “Not later than December 1 of each year, each institution of higher education shall submit to the Lieutenant Governor and the Speaker of the House of Representatives a report certifying the institution’s compliance with this section.” If they don’t? They could lose state funding for an entire year.

On top of this, the legislation also mandates institutions to adopt or incorporate the following statements in whole:

“We affirm the value of viewpoint diversity in campus intellectual life, including in faculty recruitment and hiring.” 

See what they did there? Of course the Texas government doesn’t hate the word diversity! Why would they have “viewpoint diversity” otherwise?

“We affirm our duty to ensure that no aspects of (name of institution) life, in or outside the classroom, require, favor, disfavor, or prohibit speech or action that supports any political, social, or religious belief.” 

Not requiring or prohibiting such speech or action makes sense. However, the part about favoring and disfavoring speech or action that supports political, social, or religious beliefs is just overcomplicating and politicizing the duties DEI offices perform. 

“We affirm our commitment to create a community dedicated to civil and free inquiry that respects the intellectual freedom of each member, supports individual capacities for growth, and tolerates the differences in opinion that naturally occur in a public university community.”

Other statements are there, but for the cherry on top, the last statement is: 

“These values take priority over any other value we may also adopt.” Great!

If you’re interested in looking through the legislation yourself, here’s the link.

Why was this bill passed?

State Senator Brandon Creighton stated, “DEI programs have been shown to be exclusive, they have been shown to be ineffective, and they have shown to be politically charged.” He also argued that DEI offices have done “damage and destruction” to Texas schools. Regarding their ineffectiveness, one of his citations is a 2018 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research which found that a Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) did not have a strong correlation with diversity hiring. Despite this, the study also found that “…increasing faculty diversity appears to enjoy broad support within academia.” and asserted that “Despite widespread desire to increase faculty diversity, it simply may not be possible to rapidly increase faculty diversity given the pool of available faculty candidates.” The paper’s purpose was to investigate the impact of diversity on the hiring of a CDO. Arguing that DEI offices have failed to increase diversity by cherry-picking studies is not a good look.  

Backing up Creighton, a Texas Senate news release concerning SB 17 states, “Senate Bill 17 is the most significant ban on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in higher education in the nation. In recent years, DEI offices have grown in size and influence across college campuses requiring political litmus tests, compelled speech, and mandatory diversity statements.”

Certainly, SB 17 has targeted DEI in higher education more than other state bills. Now, as for political litmus tests, Creighton has equated mandated diversity statements to political “loyalty oaths.” Diversity statements are controversial because they are a factor in the employment screening process. I mean surely a workplace that strives to have everyone feel like they belong shouldn’t be required to describe their commitment to fostering inclusion. That would just be wrong! We don’t like that diversity advocates require us to describe how we’re going to commit to their values in the hiring process. A diversity statement clearly demonstrates one’s values and efforts against discrimination, and…oh… okay yeah, the dots are being connected. 

Compelled speech? Are you being forced to say you want to welcome differences between people? If you feel threatened by a company placing importance on your personal efforts to cultivate a diverse community chances are you don’t interact with people different than you or have never made a significant effort to do so. Either way, is it really such an issue that the whole concept has to be removed entirely? 

Additionally, the press release states, “Despite hundreds of employees and millions of tax dollars, just here in Texas, DEI offices have failed to make progress advancing or increasing diversity.” On top of that, we have Creighton’s statement that, “Now that these bills are law, institutes of higher education are better equipped to prepare the next generation of leaders, and keep Texas the economic engine of the nation.” The connection between DEI offices and Texas’ finances made here is clear: DEI offices are a waste of taxpayer dollars. (Once again, the people who are actually impacted by this bill would like to say otherwise.) 

He also said, “With this bold, forward-thinking legislation to eliminate DEI programs, Texas is leading the nation, and ensuring our campuses return to focusing on the strength of diversity and promoting a merit-based approach where individuals are judged on their qualifications, skills, and contributions. What sets SB 17 apart from other proposals is that the legislation delivers strong enforcement with mandates to return Texas colleges and universities to their core mission — educate and innovate.”

Bold and forward-thinking! Prohibiting through law any sort of university-led diversity efforts, training, community space, funding, and the list goes on… not to mention, as previously discussed, the built-in, mandated consequences! (What happened to so-called freedom of speech?)

He stated, “We have to pursue a different route on our aligned goal to achieve diversity.” 

But what is that alternative route? What is the solution, then, if DEI offices are unsuitable to support diversity in higher education institutions? How can we achieve diversity through the destruction of the very offices made to foster it? If DEI offices were really doing the opposite of their purpose or pushing favoritism upon underrepresented groups, wouldn’t that be made extremely clear through the student’s voices themselves? It’s clear that achieving diversity through a “different route” is not the goal here when the people this legislation impacts, students and faculty, have opposed it. In fact, Creighton’s lack of consultation with lawmakers of color concerning this legislation has been criticized. 

So what’s the motive here? For starters, Creighton has historically touted conservative values, his slogan being “Let Texas Run Texas.” In 2017, he sponsored House Bill 214 which limited insurance coverage for abortions in Texas. More recently in 2019, he sponsored Senate Bill 15 which weakens anti-discrimination laws passed in Texas cities. His reasoning? It stood for “Texas values.” They do say everything’s bigger in Texas, but come on. The only thing made bigger in this case is the damage and destruction to Texas schools. 

Concluding Thoughts

Founded in 1988, The Multicultural Engagement Center (MEC) served as an on-campus “home away from home” for UT students. The MEC hosted many welcome event programs such as CultivAsian, Bloq Party, New Black Student Weekend, Adelante, Four Directions, and Leadership Institutes and housed six university-sponsored student organizations: Afrikan American Affairs (AAA), Asian Desi Pacific Islander American Collective (APAC), Latino Leadership Council (LLC), Native American and Indigenous Collective (NAIC), Queer People of Color and Allies (QPOCA), and Students for Equity and Diversity (SED). Now, they face a lack of university funding, resources, and physical space. 

Other public Texas universities have also undergone changes following SB 17. The University of North Texas was the first to dismantle its DEI office. The Office of LGBTQIA Education and Engagement at Texas Tech closed with unclear communication of where its previously provided resources, such as sexual health and emancipation from abusive parents, will go. At Texas A&M, the Pride Center became the Student Life Center and the responsibility of previous university-sanctioned events, such as Lavender Graduation, has been shifted to LGBTQ+ student organizations. Across Texas, resources are either displaced or no longer available to students and the words diversity, equity, and inclusion are unsafe. 

Ultimately, Senate Bill 17 serves as a self-fulfilling prophecy of Creighton’s “damage and destruction” to Texas schools. Is this only one of many plot points within a downhill trend that Texas will continue to follow? Well, without diving into the rabbit hole that is affirmative action and other legislations that have targeted higher education, as our government makes the decisions it does now, yes. Well, what can we do? Like many of the larger going-ons of the world, the list of what we can do to discuss and protest is endless, but the actual resulting action is not as plentiful. However, while we are restlessly watching these laws marinate, who knows? Perhaps, or hopefully, one day the dreaded d-word (diversity) will find its place back in Texas.