The Texas Legislature has passed a law banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state universities.
The bill now heads to the the desk of Gov. Greg Abbott (R).
The measure — the second of its kind passed by any state, after Florida — is one that critics say could hamstring flagship state institutions such as the University of Texas and Texas A&M University. They also warn it could chase minority students from state universities and devastate smaller schools.
The bill obligates the governors of each state university to ensure their institution has no diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) office and does not consider diversity as a factor when making hires.
State Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington) told the House the bill is necessary to protect Texas from radicalism.
“Conservatives began this session by recognizing this simple truth: Texas has allowed leftist to infiltrate our universities for far too long,” Tinderholt said Monday.
“If you’re voting to keep these people on the Texas tax payroll at these universities, you are complicit in their subversion,” he added.
To proponents, DEI programs are a means to ease the integration and ensure the fair treatment of social and sexual minorities in American workplaces.
“Diversity is where everyone is invited to the party, inclusion means that everyone gets to contribute to the playlist, [and] equity means that everyone has the opportunity to dance/experience the music,” Robert Sellers, chief diversity officer of the University of Michigan, wrote in a statement.
But since the national reckoning on race that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd, conservative activists have sought to frame DEI as fundamentally racist programs.
“The University of Texas has created a radical DEI bureaucracy that equates ‘objectivity’ with ‘white supremacy,’ recommends the word ‘wimmin’ as a replacement for ‘women,’ and affirms ‘polyamory’ and ‘polyfidelity’ as positive sexual identities,” far right activist Christopher Rufo wrote earlier this month.
“The University of Texas at Austin is wasting untold millions on race and gender narcissism,” Rufo added.
In his statements Monday, Tinderholt echoed the idea that DEI was something threatening, radical — and fundamentally racist.
“I was pretty disgusted by the things that I watched my Democrat peers say about you, my Republican peers, on Friday. We judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin,” Tinderholt said.
“Texas has allowed racist programs to not only be established, but also to then hire dozens of full-time leftist activists who do nothing but spread these destructive DEI Marxist policies and worldview.”
But in debate Monday, several Black and Latino members — all Democrats — stood to recount the crucial role that diversity programs had played in their lives, or those of their children or constituents.
Rep. Mary E. González (D-El Paso) recounted encountering racist taunts in the dorms during her first semester at the University of Texas and the key role the university’s multicultural center played in her staying at the school and continuing on to medical school.
“What I love about these spaces is that they’re learning laboratories for our future society. And instead of creating nuance around these spaces, we are banning them,” she said.
With one in six Texas students now attending school out of state, González warned that the bill would “perpetuate the exodus we’re seeing.”
And since many granting institutions that professors rely on now have DEI requirements, she warned that it would harm the state’s abilities to attract processors.
“If I’m a professor who is considering going to university, why would I consider coming to Texas when I could not get the research funding I need in order to do the work that I want to do?”
She added: “I’d rather go to a different state.”
For example, state hospitals and medical schools are only eligible to receive funding from the National Cancer Institute’s $20 million P30 Grant if they they have a DEI office.
Shuttering all state DEI offices — which are voluntary — would cost the state $1 billion in lost grant funding, Rep. Nicole Collier (D-Fort Worth) told the House.
Much of that cost, she said, would fall on smaller institutions that depend on third-party grants for research dollars, which she argued they will now struggle to build.
Other Democrats pointed to the message the legislation would send to young, college-bound voters in Texas, one of the most diverse states in the country.
“When I’m out in my district, I will tell you that when I speak to young voters, this is the one thing they talk about — diversity, equity and inclusion — and they are not happy about this. And I can tell you when you vote in favor of this legislation, the young people in your district are watching you,” Rep. Christina Morales (D-Houston) told the House.
And Rep. Alma Allen (D-Houston) rose to recount a childhood in Texas’s then-segregated school systems. “This is 2023 — 2023! — and we are still fighting for the rights that we fought for in 1954,” she said.
Allen made an impassioned, doomed plea to her GOP colleagues. “Your children are going to grow up with my children. They may even marry my children. Be thinking about that,” she said.
She urged her colleagues to “vote no for my children, my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren — and for your children, your grandchildren, and your grandchildren. Make this a better world,” she said.
Her appeal failed. The bill passed 83-60 along strict party lines Monday.
Updated at 12:05 p.m. May 23