Don’t Trust Universities: State Lawmakers Should Abolish DEI Once and for All

Introduction

It is no surprise that confidence in higher education is plummeting. Graduation rates are abysmal, and too many programs leave those who do graduate ill-prepared for the workforce (Kantrowitz, 2021). Perhaps most importantly, there is a widespread sense that many universities spend immense time and energy pushing divisive ideologies instead of teaching students to think, write, discover, or gain mastery of a useful discipline.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and programs—and their animating ideologies—are the forces most responsible for this abdication. Far from building inclusive learning environments, they sow racial discord by training students to understand everything in terms of shallow race stereotypes. Advocates of equity, meanwhile, push standards down to equalize success rates across demographic groups. This weakens academic rigor and undermines learning outcomes.

The American people broadly reject the politicization of higher education (Kaufman, 2022). In response, lawmakers in several states are working to abolish DEI in state universities (Chronicle Staff, n.d.).

Attention from lawmakers to the problem has spurred several universities to rein in campus DEI programs proactively. At best, these university efforts are poor substitutes for carefully crafted legislation, which allows for much stronger accountability mechanisms. In some cases, university-led efforts will turn out to be entirely illusory—administration-driven feints designed to preempt meaningful legislative reforms. State lawmakers cannot afford to “pass the buck” on campus DEI. They should instead follow the lead of Texas and Florida legislators to enact substantive reforms with strong enforcement mechanisms and proceed diligently in monitoring compliance with those reforms.

Why Campus DEI Must be Abolished

DEI brands itself as advancing admirable goals such as “acceptance of people from different backgrounds” (Leach, 2023). Sympathetic voices in the media promote this ruse. In reality, DEI stokes resentment and division based on immutable characteristics like skin color. DEI is a Trojan horse for critical race theory (CRT)—a sweeping neo-Marxist perspective that categorizes people alternatively as “oppressors” (e.g., whites, men, heterosexuals) and “oppressed” (e.g., people of color, women, sexual minorities) (Swain & Schorr, 2021).

By institutionalizing this divisiveness, campus DEI sabotages higher education in four key respects:

1. Undermining belonging. Pitting groups against one another is inherently corrosive to a sense of common membership and purpose. Unsurprisingly, students rate campus climates as “no better—and often worse, especially for minority students—at universities with larger DEI staff levels” (Greene & Paul, 2021). For example, after spending $85 million on DEI from 2016 to 2021, the University of Michigan saw campus climate assessments plummet among faculty (-23.1%), staff (-12.9%), and students (-10.7%) (Chavous et al., 2023). After spending $11 million on DEI from 2015 to 2020, “feelings of belonging” declined at Texas A&M among white (-10.8%), Hispanic (-13.6%), and black (-32.9%) students (Yenor, 2023).
2. Killing the pursuit of truth. Campus DEI undermines the advancement of knowledge, a core function of higher education. It uses prohibitions and mandates on speech to replace a traditionally robust marketplace of ideas with a rigid regime of thought conformity (Stanford University, 2022; De Piero, 2023). Moreover, by sidelining the Western tradition in favor of so-called “indigenous ways of knowing” (i.e., subjective “lived experiences”), campus DEI discards reason, science, and objectivity—the very methods by which knowledge is acquired (Delgado & Stefancic, 2011 p. 3; Knight, 2024).
3. Fueling antisemitism. As evidenced by the recent wave of protests and encampments at elite universities, campus DEI is intimately connected to antisemitism (Pidluzny, 2024). Both are informed by a crude “intersectional” stereotyping of groups according to their (supposed) power and privileges (Pidluzny, 2023b). The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education endorses—indeed, it mandates—this approach in its standards of professional practice for chief diversity officers (CDOs), describing intersectionality as providing the “ethical, legal, and practical considerations for CDOs to address when planning and carrying out their work” (Worthington et al., 2020 p.7).
4. Undermining rigor. Campus DEI degrades the quality of academic work by elevating identity and grievance above the pursuit of excellence. To advance “equity,” DEI proponents advocate reducing or eliminating academic requirements (TEDx Talks, 2021). Unsurprisingly, courses have become less rigorous (Calarco, 2022). Abandoning merit also degrades faculty hiring and promotion. President Claudine Gay’s leadership of Harvard was a catastrophe for the institution. Her failure to protect Jewish students or to communicate any real concern for Jew hatred on campus embarrassed alumni, enraged donors, and left the institution’s reputation in tatters. Her thin academic record—much of it plagiarized from other academics—suggests she was hired because she checks off the right identity boxes, not for a distinguished record of academic leadership and research excellence (Swain, 2024).

Most Universities Will Not Adequately Police Themselves

The notion that universities should lead efforts to abolish campus DEI is intuitively appealing. Recently, the Board of Governors of the University of North Carolina (UNC) enacted a promising suite of reforms mirroring those passed by Texas lawmakers in 2023 (see Senate Bill 17 discussion below) (UNC Division of Legal Affairs, 2024). As with Texas, the UNC board requires its 16 affiliated campuses to submit compliance reports documenting staff and funding reductions and changes to job positions and titles (University of North Carolina, 2024).

Recent reports indicate these initial reforms have been successful, but is this the optimal, surefire approach for uprooting campus DEI (Seminera, 2024)? UNC’s success comes on the heels of concerted political pressure generated by a massive public backlash following a series of well-publicized DEI abuses. The continued success of these reforms depends on ongoing focus and compliance from senior college administrators. Such individuals will face competing pressures from pro-DEI constituencies across their campuses, and many are likely to oppose reform efforts personally. In contrast, state lawmakers can create strong and ongoing incentives to comply by enforcing annual compliance requirements, investigating noncompliance, and critically tying state appropriations to faithful reform implementation.

Another problem with university-led reforms has to do with reformers’ motivations. Consider the recent “shell game” at the University of Missouri (Mizzou). In his public statements, University Systems President Mun Choi admitted that, in dissolving the DEI division, he sought to dissuade Missouri lawmakers from passing substantive legislation and to prevent real reductions to DEI funding and staffing levels (Keller, 2024). Choi boasted, “We do believe that our proactive approaches in the past have really played an important role when diverting these bills from passing… and I will be sharing our plans with elected leaders.” He adds that “no employees will lose their jobs” and that he fully intends “to preserve the jobs and programs but to make them less visible” (emphasis added).

University materials published online demonstrate that DEI remains entrenched at Mizzou and elsewhere in the University of Missouri system (UM, n.d.-a; UM, n.d.-b; UMSL, n.d.; UMKC, 2024; Missouri S&T, n.d.). Mizzou scrapped its “DEI rubric” to assess job applicants based on their track record of promoting DEI. However, affiliated campuses have nonetheless retained diversity statements (rebranded as “values commitment statements”) for job applicants (Henderson, 2023).

Campus DEI reforms at the University of Kentucky (UK) are likewise disappointing (Ladd, 2024). Like Mizzou, UK is not laying off DEI administrators but rather shifting them (and their services) to other offices. A new Office of Community Relations will replace UK’s Office for Institutional Diversity, for example. On the positive side, UK has committed to prohibiting mandatory diversity training and to removing diversity statements from the hiring process.

Excepting UNC, university-led DEI reforms are deeply underwhelming. Weak and duplicitous university-led efforts strongly suggest strong external accountability mechanisms are needed. Lawmakers cannot rely on colleges and universities to protect students, faculty, and staff from divisive DEI policies and programs because the institutions are effectively “hostile territory,” places where DEI proponents are legion, entrenched, and most of all, fanatically committed (Pidluzny, 2023a).

Texas Demonstrates a Better Way Forward

In this “uphill battle,” opponents of campus DEI need every tool at their disposal. Texas’ Senate Bill (SB) 17 is instructive in this regard (SB 17, 2023). The 2023 law prohibits publicly funded schools from using diversity statements in hiring and from mandating DEI training. It further requires universities to dismantle DEI bureaucracies and to certify their compliance with the state auditor and legislature as a condition of public funding.

As revealed in May’s Texas Senate hearings, Texas universities have made substantial, good-faith efforts to comply with SB 17 provisions (Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education, 2024). The results are evident in numerous university positions being substantially revised or eliminated. For example, the University of Texas (UT) closed or restructured 21 DEI offices, affecting 311 positions (60 of which were eliminated) and 681 contracts and programs. Texas A&M eliminated or restricted nine DEI offices, affecting 114 positions.

An August 2024 audit by the Texas Tech System Board of Regents likewise found broad compliance with SB 17 (Rosiles, 2024). Staffing changes are expected to save taxpayers $25 million per year from UT alone (Dey, 2024). In addition to these savings, there are many other benefits to Texas’ students, faculty, and staff: freedom from speech restrictions, compelled speech, discrimination in hiring and promotion, and divisive training sessions.

These findings are heartening, especially in light of previous revelations that several Texas universities had avoided compliance by funneling prohibited DEI services through student organizations and by renaming DEI initiatives and offices (AIM, 2024). Following the Senate hearings, several additional blatant cases of non-compliance were uncovered, including:

• DEI mission statements at Texas State University and UT Austin (CDGS, n.d.; CSRD, 2024).
• Race-conscious hiring at the University of Houston–Clear Lake and Texas State (OHR, 2023; TXST, 2022).
• Administrator assessments based on advocacy for “equity” and “diversity” at UT Arlington.
• Training promoting group stereotypes at Midwestern State University.

Fortunately, at the time of this writing, Midwestern State and UT Arlington have both removed the noted non-compliant policies from their official web pages. Slowly but surely, Texas is overcoming entrenched resistance and winning its fight against campus DEI.

The contrast between the Texas and North Carolina cases ultimately has less to do with the quality of the enacted reforms—both look very promising—than with their respective utility as models for other states to emulate. UNC’s governing board has long shown principled leadership in its careful oversight of North Carolina campuses. Few boards around the country have shown comparable resolve, and many states have decentralized governance authority to campus-level boards of regents and trustees—making coordinated action unlikely if it does not come from policymakers. UNC is thus an apparent exception that proves the rule. In most states, it will be up to lawmakers to lead efforts to abolish campus DEI.

Conclusion

State lawmakers would do well to eschew hit-or-miss university-led approaches in favor of the broadly replicable approach taken by Texas. By following Texas’ lead, lawmakers can make meaningful strides toward restoring higher education’s historic and vital mission of truth-seeking and the advancement of knowledge.