Last year Texas legislators passed a bill aimed at removing DEI staff and groups from state-funded universities in Texas.

After hours of contentious debate, the Texas Senate approved a bill Wednesday that would largely restrict how the state’s public universities can promote equitable access to higher education and cultivate diversity among students, faculty and staff.

Senate Bill 17 was approved along party lines in a 19 to 12 vote. It would require universities to close their diversity, equity and inclusion offices, which have become a mainstay on campuses across the country as schools try to boost faculty diversity and help students from all backgrounds succeed. The bill would also ban mandatory diversity training and restrict hiring departments from asking for diversity statements, essays in which job applicants talk about their commitment to building diverse campuses.

The new law went into effect in January and in advance of that date, Texas universities made some cosmetic attempts to comply with the law. For instance, at the University of Texas the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement was renamed the Division of Campus and Community Engagement.

But last week, one of the authors of Senate Bill 17 sent a letter to University chancellors and regents making clear that cosmetic changes would not be enough to comply with the new law. The letter warned that the state Senate would be holding a compliance hearing in May at which time schools would be asked to answer questions about changes made in light of the new law.

The letter emphasizes critical areas of compliance, including the prohibition of DEI offices or officers, the ban on DEI training, adherence to merit-based hiring practices, the exclusion of diversity statements and political oaths in hiring or promotion processes, and preparations for audit compliance by the State Auditor’s Office. Written responses addressing these compliance requirements must be submitted to the committee by May 3, 2024...

The letter warns that any attempts to circumvent SB 17’s provisions by merely renaming DEI offices or positions will not be tolerated. The legislation includes strict enforcement measures, including the potential freezing of university funding and legal actions for non-compliance.

That seems to have gotten the attention of people at the University of Texas. Yesterday, the school's president announced that, after a period of evaluation, additional changes were being made.

Soon after the passage last year of Senate Bill 17 — which prohibits many activities around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) — the University embarked on a multiphase process to review campus portfolios and end or redesign the policies, programs, trainings, and roles affected by the new law. Our initial focus was to ensure we made the required changes by SB 17’s January 1 effective date, but we knew that more work would be required to utilize our talent and resources most effectively in support of our teaching and research missions, and ultimately, our students. 

Since that date, we have been evaluating our post-SB 17 portfolio of divisions, programs, and positions. The new law has changed the scope of some programs on campus, making them broader and creating duplication with long-standing existing programs supporting students, faculty, and staff. Following those reviews, we have concluded that additional measures are necessary to reduce overlap, streamline student-facing portfolios, and optimize and redirect resources into our fundamental activities of teaching and research...

Additionally, funding used to support DEI across campus prior to SB 17’s effective date will be redeployed to support teaching and research. As part of this reallocation, associate or assistant deans who were formerly focused on DEI will return to their full-time faculty positions. The positions that provided support for those associate and assistant deans and a small number of staff roles across campus that were formerly focused on DEI will no longer be funded.

What that means in practice is at least 60 people who previously held DEI related jobs are being let go.

Employees who had previously worked in DEI roles received layoff notices Tuesday. That came months after the university had reassigned them from those positions to comply with the legislation, which went into effect Jan. 1. The school declined to provide a specific tally of the number of people affected, though the AAUP said 60 is a “conservative estimate.”

Progressives on and off campus are still working out how to respond. They argue that most of the people let go yesterday no longer had DEI related jobs.

Critics of the terminations said they were carried out in response to that letter, though the university did not immediately respond to what role, if any, it played. Bledsoe said the NAACP was considering seeking intervention from a federal agency or asking research funding entities to weigh in, as well as talking with affected individuals about potential violations of their First Amendment rights. He declined to say whether the group was considering legal action, but said meetings with “all the stakeholders” are actively taking place...

University department chairs and faculty have spent the past two days organizing and figuring out what they could do to protest the university’s decision.

Lisa Moore, chair of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies department, was told that the position of one of the department’s senior staff members would be eliminated Tuesday morning. It soon became clear, she said, the scale of the cuts.

Emphasizing that she was speaking in her personal capacity, Moore said the layoffs are already having a “chilling effect” on campus, as many of her peers are anxious about speaking out in public for fear that they could put a target on themselves or departments. The employee who was notified of their layoff preferred to stay anonymous thus far, she said.

So is this a case of the university overreacting or is the school finally being honest about getting rid of the DEI officials it had hired and then pushed into other jobs to show compliance with SB 17? It sounds like this is going to wind up in court so we'll probably have a judge rendering a decision on that question eventually. In the meantime, the layoffs are scheduled to take effect in 90 days.