Disrupting Colonial Logics: Transformational Resistance Against SB 17 and the Dismantling of DEI in Texas Higher Education, by Valenzuela, A., Unda, M.D.C. & Bernal, J. M

Disrupting Colonial Logics: Transformational Resistance Against SB 17 and the Dismantling of DEI in Texas Higher Education

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., Maria Del Carmen Unda, & Julio Mena Bernal

In “Disrupting Colonial Logics: Transformational Resistance Against SB 17 and the Dismantling of DEI in Texas Higher Education,” Dr. María del Carmen Unda, Julio Mena Bernal, and I examine how Texas Senate Bill 17—aimed at banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs across the state’s public universities—seeks to erase decades of hard-won progress. We argue that SB 17 is not merely a policy shift, but part of a broader colonial logic that censors and suppresses critical thought.

Drawing on Solórzano & Delgado Bernal’s (2001) framework of transformational resistance and Mignolo’s (2007) concept of the “colonial matrix of power,” we show how SB 17 exemplifies settler colonial efforts to undermine racial and educational justice (Tuck & Yang, 2012). Our article highlights how students, faculty, and communities are enacting creative, purposeful resistance that redefines what it means to fight for equity amid increasingly hostile political conditions. It is both a scholarly intervention and a call to action in defense of public higher education, marginalized communities, and democratic learning spaces.

This piece offers a critique of the current political moment and a celebration of collective struggle to reclaim and reimagine higher education as a liberatory, decolonial space. In response to efforts to silence marginalized voices and dismantle DEI, we uplift the power of grassroots organizing, student activism, and community-rooted scholarship as essential forms of transformational resistance.

We are deeply grateful to lead editors Drs. Marisol Ruiz and Nancy Perez, as well as Dr. Miguel Zavala for publishing our analysis of transformational resistance to SB 17 in the Ethnic Studies Pedagogies Journal—a truly exemplary journal advancing justice-oriented scholarship in support of Ethnic Studies and public education.

You may download the entire issue that contains our contribution here [pdf]. You can also visit the journal's website, Ethnic StudiesPedagogies.org to gain access to all of their publications. 

Though under constant attack, the Ethnic Studies movement in Texas—and across the nation—remains resilient and deeply rooted. Still, we find ourselves fighting tooth and nail for a research agenda and curriculum that, in a more just future, will be recognized simply as "a good education."

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Mignolo, W. D. (2007). Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 449–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/09502380601162647

Solórzano, D. G., & Delgado Bernal, D. (2001). Examining transformational resistance through a critical race and LatCrit theory framework: Chicana and Chicano students in an urban context. Urban Education, 36(3), 308–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085901363002

Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. https://nau.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/84/1/titusland%2C%2B18630-43262-1-CE.pdf

Valenzuela, A., Unda, M. D. C., & Mena Bernal, J. (2025). Disrupting colonial logics: Transformational resistance against SB 17 and the dismantling of DEI in Texas higher education. Ethnic Studies Pedagogies, 3(1), [pp. 7-24]. https://www.ethnicstudiespedagogies.org/gallery/Volume3-Issue1-Final.pdf