This is a helpful, descriptive piece on DEI implementation in Florida and Texas from the March 2024 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education,
Best,
-Angela Valenzuela
The Chaos of Compliance: How Public Colleges in Two States are Actually Responding to DEI Bans
March 22, 2024
After Texas acted last year to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives at public colleges statewide, students like Kaitie Tolman were eager to offer the programming their institutions no longer could.
The path to doing so seemed clear: Senate Bill 17, which took effect January 1, exempted student groups from its provisions, which included the banning of DEI offices and employees. But Tolman, a fifth-year student at the University of Houston and former president of the LGBTQ student organization GLOBAL, quickly learned that students’ hopes to take up the defunct programs wouldn’t be so simple.
When Tolman and her peers tried to determine what exactly was being eliminated on their campus, they were met with vague email responses from administrators and a couple of confusing meetings. Everyone they talked to reassured the students that they would help in any way they could. But when Tolman asked for specific details, like how to organize an LGBTQ graduation ceremony, many said they weren’t able to help out of fear of legal repercussions, she said.
To Tolman, administrators appeared to “err on the side of caution” in talking with students about DEI programming at all. As a result, students were being told they could supplement programs being lost, while simultaneously being blocked from any information about what those programs were. “We very much felt the solution they came up with was, ‘Well, y’all figure it out,’” Tolman said. “‘We were happy to help you, as long as we don’t have to actually do anything.’”
Tolman and her peers aren’t the only ones left in the dark about the consequences of anti-DEI legislation. Since last year, eight states have passed laws curtailing the type of diversity initiatives state-funded colleges can offer. Yet public knowledge of the laws’ on-the-ground effects has largely been limited to sporadic local news coverage, and sometimes filtered through politically distorted channels.
To assess how colleges have changed in response to these new laws, The Chronicle surveyed public colleges in two states that have enacted them: Texas and Florida. Of the 137 colleges surveyed, about 40 percent answered, many of which offered detailed accounting of changes they have made to comply with the laws. (Several other colleges answered, but failed to address The Chronicle’s specific questions or declined to participate.)
The result is the most comprehensive portrait yet of how colleges are reshaping themselves in response to legislation targeting DEI. And it reveals that campuses are reacting inconsistently — some dramatically and others not at all.
Nearly four dozen campuses in the two states offered substantive responses to The Chronicle: Over all, 24 colleges made changes to an office or department; 23 cut or reassigned jobs; seven ended DEI training for admission or employment; two axed funding for DEI activities; and 15 eliminated other DEI-related programming. Interestingly, 19 said they were already in compliance with the law and didn’t have to alter anything.
The responses yielded a familiar aura of uncertainty as administrators grapple with what is permissible under the legislation. The changes campuses did make varied greatly. While one Texas college eliminated its multicultural center, another opened one to replace its DEI office. While some colleges in Florida have simply reassigned their DEI employees, the University of Florida recently terminated 13 of its full-time staff. Experts previously told The Chronicle that the vague, sweeping laws leave large room for interpretation. The immediate effects, spelled out here, prove just how vast that gulf is in practice.
Activists and students like Tolman said The Chronicle’s findings illustrate a loss of community on campus. Programming offered to students, like social gatherings or counseling services, could dwindle. Some also worry that while some organizations are still running, they’ll lose funding and support. Students and faculty said they received little information about how administrators came to these decisions in the first place and worry colleges could be overreacting when so much is left up for interpretation.
“These DEI bills are new terrain. There’s not all this precedent that we have in other areas of the law. Florida and Texas are the vanguard,” said Antonio L. Ingram II, a civil-rights lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “They’re using these overly conservative hermeneutics to really render many of these exemptions not actionable, and students and faculty are suffering as a result.”
For the laws’ advocates, questions remain about how colleges are complying — if at all. As some colleges have simply changed an office’s name or reassigned programs, they worry there is still more to be done to eliminate DEI altogether. And with some campuses opening activities to “everyone” that were traditionally catered to one group, they’re concerned administrators are creating workarounds rather than eradicating DEI completely.
“I understand why some admins are engaging in massive resistance to the idea of the colorblind merit-based system that the legislature has required and that’s because it goes against their ideological priors,” said Ilya Shapiro, a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, where he co-authored model legislation that many states have used in writing anti-DEI bills. “My answer to that is: tough. You have to follow the law.”
To some extent, the rollout of these laws has left no one satisfied. And with fresh legislation being proposed each month, what’s unfolding in Florida and Texas may provide a glimpse into a messy and chaotic future.
In early 2023, conservative lawmakers began pushing to abolish DEI practices, which advocates argue help to mitigate discrimination on campus and provide support to historically marginalized communities. Among the most common targets were standalone diversity offices, mandatory diversity training, and the use of diversity statements in hiring — practices that critics called ineffective and discriminatory in their own way.
“We must ensure that our institutions of higher learning are focused on academic excellence and the pursuit of truth, not the imposition of trendy ideology,” Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said in a January 2023 speech that effectively kicked off his campaign to reshape public higher education in the state.
What followed was a bonanza of legislative activity taking aim at colleges’ DEI practices. Since The Chronicle started tracking the legislation last year, at least 81 bills have been introduced — including 37 this year alone — in 28 states. The bills are often modeled after proposed legislation from the Goldwater and Manhattan Institutes, two conservative think tanks.
In Texas, Senate Bill 17 banned state funding of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Following months of debate and amendments to the bill, the final version prohibited colleges from establishing a diversity, equity, and inclusion office, which it defines as a “unit of an institution” that influences hiring practices or promotes differential treatment of people based on race, color, or ethnicity. It also refers to an office that conducts training and programs on race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
The law, signed by Gov. Greg Abbott in June, also bans colleges from hiring a person to perform the duties of a DEI office, requiring diversity statements, or mandating training that refers to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation, while exempting course instruction, research, and student organizations. (Section 59 of the state’s appropriations bill also banned spending on “unconstitutional” DEI programs.)
In Florida, House Bill 931 and Senate Bill 266 prohibited “political loyalty tests” as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion statements in hiring or promotion, and banned colleges from spending state or federal money on programs that “advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or promote or engage in political or social activism.”
The Senate bill also carved out exemptions for student organizations, stating they can still receive funding through student fees and may use college-owned facilities, as well as programs that are required to comply with federal law, necessary to obtain accreditation, or those approved by the State Board of Education or the Board of Governors. After a series of amendments, DeSantis signed both bills into law in May. In January the Board of Governors banned Florida’s 12 public campuses from using state or federal dollars toward diversity programs or activities, aligning with the law.
Now that the laws have gone into effect, the impacts have emerged piecemeal through scattered news stories, general-counsel guidance documents, and reports from political actors watching the changes take shape on the ground. The resulting landscape — and the reasoning behind campuses’ responses — has been anything but clear.
To try to establish a clear picture of how campuses have responded to the legislation, The Chronicle contacted the two states’ public colleges between late January through the beginning of March. We asked for information on any updates the colleges had made to offices, programs, jobs, training, courses, and funding efforts in order to comply. While local media reports have captured a number of the individual changes that have transpired since the laws passed, this analysis focuses solely on the responses we collected.
Some campuses took sweeping action. The University of Houston told The Chronicle it nixed more than 40 student-affairs activities along with its LGBTQ Resource Center. The university also closed its Center for Diversity and Inclusion, opening up the Center for Student Advocacy and Community in its place and moving five employees into new roles.
That exemplified what The Chronicle found across other Texas colleges: Ten institutions created a new office after eliminating one, and four colleges changed the name of an old office. Names that included the words diversity, equity, or inclusion were out, replaced by terms like “engagement,” “community,” and “belonging.” For example, the University of North Texas and Texas Woman‘s University both created new centers — the Center for Belonging and Engagement and the Center for Belonging and First-Generation Students, respectively — to replace their shuttered DEI offices.
In Florida, colleges took an even more sweeping approach, often cutting programs and offices without any mention of a replacement. Florida State University and the Universities of Florida, South Florida, and North Florida reported to The Chronicle that they had eliminated their DEI offices, and reassigned or changed the roles of any DEI staff. Florida State and the University of Florida were the only colleges across both states that reported changes to funding practices. Florida State terminated a DEI mini-grant program, memberships to DEI organizations, and subscriptions to DEI-related publications, while the University of Florida re-routed $5 million in DEI funds to a faculty-recruitment fund.
The University of Florida was the only campus that said it had fired staff as a result of new laws. Others reassigned employees or changed their roles, and a handful said they let vacant posts remain unfilled. Florida State told The Chronicle it “repurposed” two human-resources positions that focused on DEI, while another position’s DEI-related responsibilities were replaced with other tasks. At Seminole State College, the former chief DEI officer became the “Associate Vice President for Organizational Culture and Strategy/Title IX Coordinator.”
It wasn’t always clear how new offices or titles represent different missions. Some colleges specified to The Chronicle that their newly created departments would support all students, or pointed to certain services for pregnant, first-generation, and veteran students within revamped offices.
Such changes have elicited suspicion from conservative lawmakers and accusations from some DEI opponents that colleges are attempting to subvert the legislation. “The idea that these changes are cosmetic, and that the administrators at these universities have not examined their goals with DEI, is disheartening and problematic because it clearly states that improving outcomes for Texas students is not a priority for them,” said Sherry Sylvester, a fellow with the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Austin.
But DEI proponents argue that name changes are far from superficial and make it more difficult for students to find services that meet their needs. “The lack of transparency about how to find a resource that used to be obviously available, that’s a harm to students, and that’s a harm that’s due to compliance with a bill that erases DEI institutions,” said Ingram, the Legal Defense Fund attorney.
Whether these new offices, job titles, or other changes will stick remains to be seen. Already at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the college told The Chronicle that it had walked back its plans to launch a new center, the Office of Campus and Community Belonging, in place of its shuttered Office of Inclusive Excellence. It cited an “evolving understanding of SB 17 as well as continuing voluntary changes in staffing and personnel reappointments from that office.”
As colleges have taken steps to comply with the law, some campus community members say how they have gone about it has been shrouded in secrecy.
After Tolman, the University of Houston student, struggled to find information about what was being cut, she and other students filed a public-records request to get a precise answer. The list they received, which the university shared with The Chronicle, enumerated eliminations across identity-based hubs, as well as other departments such as student housing and residential life, counseling and psychological services, and university career services. A note next to nearly every program suggested that student groups could take it over — which struck Tolman as frustratingly ironic, given the resistance she had encountered in trying to do just that.
In response to The Chronicle’s inquiry, the university recognized its student-organization exemption but said it “did not go about assigning tasks/events to students,” and each student group “would need to make the decision on whether it wants to pursue any of the programming or events.” Texas A&M University had a similar response, saying that some student organizations had taken over programs that were previously organized by the Pride Center. Dallas College also pointed to its student-organization exemption in its response, noting that student groups may host a multicultural event or program, “even one that may include DEI elements.”
