It’s time for parents and students to protect the public education opportunities they want, by Mica Pollock and Hirokazu Yoshikawa

Friends,

Drs. Mica Pollock and Hirokazu Yoshikawa’s incisive study lays bare the chilling effects of Florida’s sweeping K–12 restrictions—policies that have become a national model for dismantling public education under the guise of “parents’ rights.” Sounds like Texas where rhetoric of "parental rights" are being invoked selectively—not to genuinely expand educational opportunity, but to rationalize top-down control, ideological censorship, and the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

A crucial point is that "the majority of U.S. parents want their children to learn to think critically and feel included in school as core aspects of gaining skills."

Their research reveals a sobering picture of fear, erasure, and systemic harm. Teachers are silenced, books pulled, AP courses and identity-affirming texts denied, and professional development slashed. To avoid vague punishments, educators abandon best practices and inclusive teaching, stripping vital supports from students. Rather than protecting families, these policies divert resources toward censorship, undermining the core purpose of public education.

Pollock and Yoshikawa urge parents, students, and communities to reclaim their educational rights and defend inclusive, opportunity-rich schools. Research shows students thrive when affirmed and challenged—requiring more diverse books, honest history, and support, not less. 

The anti-DEI backlash endangers not just marginalized groups but public education itself. 

Pollock and Yoshikawa call for bold, collective resistance: backing educators, speaking out, and exposing the harm of policies disguised as protection. They call for bold, collective resistance: backing educators, speaking out, and exposing the harm of policies disguised as protection. 

I'm generally not the "doom and gloom" person in the room, but truly, if we stay silent, we may soon find there’s little left of public education to defend.    

-Angela Valenzuela


It’s time for parents and students to protect the public education opportunities they want

By Mica Pollock and Hirokazu Yoshikawa

Access paper here.

May 13, 2025 | PEN America

The Trump administration has furiously targeted and cut student support efforts it feels are related to “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Trump’s Department of Education even threatened to withdraw baseline federal funding from children if K-12 educators support kids with “DEI programs” or “DEI practices” or instruction that the administration has suddenly and vaguely –and unlawfully, according to the courts — deemed “illegal.”

While various states resisted, some states agreed to review and reduce all K-12 DEI programming themselves to align with the Trump team’s anti-“DEI” demands. Judges blocked enforcement of some of these federal demands, finding they were making educators afraid to teach and support students.

So now the nation needs to ask: what else happens to education opportunity throughout K-12 systems when policymakers ramp up such threats and attacks?

The nation has an example to learn from. Our new study in Florida, The Limitation Effect, shows how policymakers pressuring restriction and “bans” on K-12 efforts to support students can end up hurting everyone.

Since 2021, Florida has been the test case for policy threatening and restricting K-12 education. Policymakers have amplified caricatures of what teachers are doing and created a suite of laws, regulations, and related state guidance to restrict education efforts. Florida policies have gone the furthest in the nation in targeting K-12 discussions of race and student supports around sexual orientation and gender identity. Policies threaten financial consequences for districts and individual educators’ employment; mandate and pressure employees into widespread vetting of materials; and actively invite individuals to try to restrict K-12 materials for everyone, including for containing any “sexual conduct.” Florida has the nation’s most book bans.

American parents should be worried. Policymakers now in and advising the Trump administration previously promoted policy elements present in Florida and are pressuring related and even broader restrictions nationwide.

Our 86 study participants, largely school-level educators and parents from 26 Florida districts, shared examples of how Florida’s restrictions harm education both for targeted subgroups and for all students as people throughout systems focus energy on limiting basic student supports.

As restriction and review pressures cascaded through systems, some teachers avoided books even mentioning “racism,” afraid they might be “unauthorized” – or said they felt afraid even to keep teaching “the African American experience in the U.S.” Librarians felt they couldn’t order books “speaking to” Black and Latino students, or books with LGBTQ characters. Educators and students became afraid to mention LGBTQ people, even their own families. Some educators stopped using youths’ preferred names. Some inclusive clubs were closed.

And study participants described more harms that spread even further across the education system as policies compounded. Despite state language about “parents’ rights,” parents were often unaware of the learning opportunities being taken from everybody’s children:Afraid for their jobs, some teachers boxed up or stopped using entire classroom libraries to avoid punishment.

Some avoided discussing basic aspects of U.S. history in class.
Some stopped using any literature other than textbooks, to be “safe.”
Educators removed safe space signs and reduced efforts to build rapport with students.

To root out “age inappropriate” material per the state, scared educators removed books for advanced readers.

In state-pressured review processes, some educators threw out books that had inspired low-income readers learning English.

Students were denied access to specific AP courses, including, statewide, the College Board’s AP African American Studies pilot.

Some librarians and entire districts removed award-winning classics that included any mention of sexual conduct.

Educators and some systems cut off student access to the public library, or stopped using national digital collections supporting struggling readers/students with disabilities, because K-12 employees could not re-review every text for content possibly prohibited by the state or disliked by an individual.

State reviewers canceled some teacher professional development on supporting all students academically, for including discussions of “equity.”

Professional development on diagnosing disabilities accurately—to avoid misplacing students generally as well as “black and brown children” particularly— was limited to avoid discussing “bias.”

Lengthy state review of materials for compliance with new restrictions held up resources for blind students, and health curriculum for some entire districts.

A district educator was spending paid time seeking lessons that did not mention “Black Lives Matter.”

Some districts spent hundreds of thousands of public dollars re-reviewing and removing books.

Some already-purchased books were thrown away.

The bottom line: the policies pressured K-12 systems to spend time, public funds, and energy on limiting student access to ideas, information, and supports, rather than expanding education opportunity. Such limitations cut into the bone of public school opportunities for everyone, to please the most extreme and restrictive voices.

In our study, many educators and parents described desires to leave Florida’s public education system due to these restrictions on top of existing stressors. As one Florida teacher put it: “I want to leave. I hate almost everything about ‘teaching’ because we are restricted on every level.”

The nation will endanger students’ futures and public schooling itself if we move further in the restriction direction.

Parents and students have a solution as the government threatens schools: more can speak up loudly for the inclusive and opportunity-rich public schools they want. Restriction policies threaten to halt the very areas of improvement that researchers call for and students need.

 Research shows all students benefit from multiple perspectives in books and classrooms, welcoming environments, and open discussions about society as they prepare for careers and college. The majority of U.S. parents want their children to learn to think critically and feel included in school as core aspects of gaining skills. We can debate best paths to these goals, but taking opportunities away from students and public schools is not “parents’ rights.” It’s time for more students, parents, and community members to say so.

In their schools and districts, to the media, at state legislatures and school board meetings, to their elected representatives, and to the feds– at every level where decisions are made— students and parents can blunt ideologically-driven calls to “ban” by focusing on supporting and discussing educators’ efforts to improve public schools for all students and expand opportunity so all children succeed. They can explain and demand more of the teaching, books, support, and programming that help all students develop skills and feel they belong. They can back up specific teachers, schools, districts, and students under attack; they can demand reinstatement of opportunities removed. Organizations to join exist nationwide.

By speaking up for schools’ best efforts to support all students, they can help stop efforts to crush America’s public schools.

That’s reclaiming education “rights.”

Mica Pollock is Professor of Education Studies at UC San Diego, and Hirokazu Yoshikawa is Courtney Sale Ross Professor of Globalization and Education and University Professor at NYU.

A User’s Guide to All the Banned Books in Texas by Dan Solomon, TEXAS MONTHLY

Just came across this article from 2022 on banned books in Texas Monthly. Banning books is so medieval and actually untenable for the digital natives that Gen Z represents. This means that our youth can't actually be kept from learning from "banned books," considering the era we live in with so many of these accessible at young people's fingertips. If anything, banning books draws attention to books that youth might not otherwise read. 

It's good to know that organizations like PEN America and school librarians are fighting back as covered in this article authored by David Montgomery in EdWeek titled, "Librarians Fight Back Against Efforts to Ban Books in Schools."  Two organizations spearheading this are Moms for Liberty and No Left Turn in Education. Commenting on banned books specifically in Texas, Texas Library Association Executive Director Shirley Robinson notes that they've not experienced challenges like these in the last 40 years. 

I recently met Moms for Libros founder Lissette Fernandez at a conference organized by PEN America in Orlando, Florida. Her organization is an obvious response to Moms for Liberty that you can learn about here from this August 13, 2023 piece on NBC Miami titled, "Moms for Libros: how the educational disputes raging in Florida will affect young learners this school year."

This won't last forever. In the meantime, do consider that reading these texts is more important now than ever. Not that parents shouldn't have a say, but that we should not establish blanket, willy-nilly policy on the basis of exceptional, individual concerns.

Angela Valenzuela

A User’s Guide to All the Banned Books in Texas

Discussions of race or sex, or just the wrong vibes, seem to be all it takes to number a book among the 801 bannings in Texas this year.

By Dan Solomon

September 20, 2022 | Texas Monthly

Over the past year, schools and libraries around the country have been banning a whole lot of books. And while this is a nationwide phenomenon, no state’s schools have embraced the practice of declaring certain stories and perspectives forbidden to their young people the way that Texas’s have. According to a list compiled by the literature and human rights nonprofit PEN America, between July 1 of last year and June 30, Texas has seen 801 bannings. That’s a huge number! Compare that with, say, Alaska or South Carolina, which have banned one book each. (In both instances, it’s Maia Kobabe’s award-winning comic book memoir Gender Queer, which has also been banned in nine districts in Texas.)

That figure—801 banned books—refers not to individual titles but rather to the number of times any school district has issued a ban. Some titles, such as Gender Queer, appear multiple times, having been banned from Canutillo (fifteen miles northwest of downtown El Paso) to Clear Creek, 785 miles to its east. Others, such as Brent Sherrard’s Final Takedown—a slim, out-of-print volume from a small Canadian publisher about a kid who faces time in juvenile detention—appear but once (in San Antonio’s North East Independent School District, the most avid banner of books in the state). Some are banned in school libraries, others in classrooms. Some have been removed pending an investigation that the school district may or may not have the time and resources to conduct in a timely manner. Most have been banned by administrators, while others are the result of a formal challenge from a parent or other community member. In any event, the guiding principle remains the same: to ensure that students are not exposed to ideas that their elders do not want them to consider, by making it increasingly difficult to access the volumes in which those ideas are contained. (Teenagers are, of course, famously respectful of such rules, and rarely seek out such materials on their own.)

Read Next: 

A Texas School District Banned My Book. Then Things Got Really Ugly.

As the full list from PEN America indicates, book banning has become a popular cause among some in our polarized electorate—but this wasn’t always the case. Back in the halcyon days of, er, March 2021, some of Texas’s political leaders fervently opposed the idea of book bans, when the topic was the decision of Dr. Seuss Enterprises, publisher of the work of Theodore Geisel under his famous pen name, to no longer publish new copies of a handful of the author’s titles that included racist stereotypes. (Ted Cruz sold signed copies of Green Eggs and Ham in protest!) That may as well have been a lifetime ago, however, as the length and breadth of the list indicates. Texas has banned books about boys and books about girls, and books where the gender is more of a swirl. It’s banned books about sex and books about race, and books about those whose white hoods hide their face. It’s banned classics, and new books, and books in-between; it’s banned best-sellers, award winners, and books rarely seen. It’s banned books about what the Nazis did to the Jews, and beloved old books by the great Judy Blume. It’s banned comics, and prose books, and books full of poems; it’s banned slim volumes, and it’s banned hefty tomes. Texas has banned a huge number of books, indeed! And here’s a quick guide to the ones schools don’t want kids to read.

A PEN America notes, these are just the incidents that have been reported to the group—the reality of book bans likely extends further throughout the state. But here are some trends.

Books about gender identity and homosexuality

Kobabe’s Gender Queer, which explores the author’s journey to the realization that their identity is beyond the gender binary, is one of just a handful of books to appear nine times on the list. It’s hardly the only book about gender identity and same-sex romance to find itself banned in a Texas school or library, however. George M. Johnson’s “memoir-manifesto” about his coming out, All Boys Aren’t Blue, appears seven times; Susan Kuklin’s 2014 nonfiction collection of interviews, Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, appears five times, as does Mike Curato’s comic book memoir Flamer. Even titles that seem downright clinical in their examination of the history of gay folks in America make the list—Jaime A. Seba’s Gay Issues and Politics: Marriage, the Military, & Work Place Discrimination, a 64-page explanation of its eponymous topic, has been banned twice. Four books by different authors with the title Gender Identity have all been banned in at least one district. It’s not just weighty titles getting banned, either—L.C. Rosen’s queer rom-com Jack of Hearts (And Other Parts) has been banned in eight districts, while The Breakaways, Cathy G. Johnson’s lightweight graphic novel about a kids’ soccer team, is banned in six because it includes a transgender boy among the players.

Books that are about straight people but have some sexual content

As the controversy around The Breakaways indicates, book-banners seem to contend that any depiction of gay or transgender characters—or nonfiction explorations of those identities—is inherently inappropriate for kids. When it comes to straight, cisgender folks, though, things have to get a bit more specific. Books such as Ashley Hope Pérez’s Out of Darkness, Jesse Andrews’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and Lauren Myracle’s l8r, g8r all appear on the list (nine, seven, and four times, respectively) for touching on sexual themes, featuring teens who talk about sex, or depicting sexual abuse. For nonfiction, books that discuss sex or its consequences openly tend to make the list—titles include Margaret O. Hyde’s Safe Sex 101: An Overview for Teens, Donna Lange’s Taking Responsibility: A Teen’s Guide to Contraception and Pregnancy, and Chloe Shantz-Hilke’s My Girlfriend’s Pregnant! A Teen’s Guide to Becoming a Dad (which seems like a useful book for kids in that situation!). And abortion, in any context, can get a book banned: Melody Rose’s Abortion: A Documentary and Reference Guide and Johannah Haney’s The Abortion Debate: Understanding the Issues, relatively straightforward histories, are on the list, as are books on the history of Roe v. Wade. Even dad-friendly political thrillers can land on the list if abortion comes up—bestselling author and occasional Fox News contributor Richard North Patterson’s Protect and Defend received an administrator’s challenge as well.

Books about race

The fervor around “critical race theory,” which describes an academic framework not taught in public schools, means that it doesn’t matter how well regarded a book about race is—such titles are all over the list of banned books. Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s National Book Award–winning book-length letter to his young son about growing up Black, is on the list, as is his We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, which features essays on race in America. One needn’t be a National Book Award winner to get on the list for writing about race, either—Duncan Tonatiuh’s history book for young readers, Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation, makes the list, as does Mychal Denzel Smith’s memoir Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man’s Education. Ibram X. Kendi’s books How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America are both banned in multiple districts. Fiction bannings include some of the most acclaimed books in American literature: Toni Morrison’s Beloved and The Bluest Eye, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and white author William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner have all been removed from libraries. Poetry isn’t exempt, either—And Still I Rise, the third collection of poems by the great Maya Angelou, is on the list, as well.

Books about political violence, historical or speculative

If you’re a student who wants to learn about the history of the Ku Klux Klan, you may need to look outside of your school library to find the most acclaimed book on the subject for young adults: Susan Campbell Bartoletti’s They Called Themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group isn’t on the shelves in three districts. Understanding how those roots affect the U.S. today might be a challenge too—Vegas Tenold’s Everything You Love Will Burn: Inside the Rebirth of White Nationalism in America, which traces the history of racist violence from the early days of the Ku Klux Klan to the events in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, is also on the list in two districts. Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the Holocaust, the comic book Maus, appears on the list, as does Ari Folman’s graphic adaptation of Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl. Even in fiction, books that explore fascist violence are verboten—the DC Comics graphic novel V for Vendetta, by legendary comic book creator Alan Moore, is banned in three districts for some reason. (The film adaptation, which similarly deals with anti-fascist themes, is also banned in China and Russia.)

Books where the vibes are wrong

For decades, Judy Blume’s Then Again, Maybe I Won’t, a puberty story from a boy’s perspective originally published in the seventies, has been a classic of the coming-of-age genre. The book hasn’t changed over the past fifty years, but frank storytelling about the issues high school students face frequently makes a book a target in Texas. Books about teen misfits such as Rainbow Rowell’s Eleanor & Park or Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower both appear. Perennial banned-book list titles such as Of Mice and Men make an appearance, as does John Irving’s The Cider House Rules. The DC Comics graphic novel Y: The Last Man also makes the list, maybe because it’s a science fiction story about everyone with a Y chromosome dying, and that’d be a bummer? Hard to say for sure, but in addition to banning books because they acknowledge that teens think about sex, or out of a desire to disappear queer folks and discussions of race from the conversation, some stuff makes the list just because of, like, vibes.

Texas Senate passes bill to kill DEI programs: You can hear all of yesterday's hearing on SB 17 here

These are our students standing up for higher education! So proud of them. You can hear all of yesterday's hearing on SB 17 here: https://tinyurl.com/mrttabk7

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas Senate passes bill to kill diversity, equity and inclusion programs

“DEI has become a political agenda," said the bill's author, while critics warned that eliminating the programs would jeopardize the progress Texas universities have made in hiring diverse talent.

Jeremy Wallace | April 20, 2023 | Houston Chronicle

Left to right, Jenna Doane, Cecelia jordan, Janeva Wilson, Maria del Carmen Unda, and Lauren Mena Shook discuss proposed legislation to ban diversity hiring programs in Texas colleges at the Texas State Capitol in Austin on April, 6, 2023. The are all members of the education policy planning program UT Austin.Bob Daemrich/Bob Daemrich/Contributor

After more than five hours of debate, the Texas Senate voted 19-12 late Wednesday to bar all public universities and colleges from having diversity, equity and inclusion programs or staff.

State Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said while he is all for diversity, DEI programs have gone too far, and are actually excluding some job candidates and ultimately not succeeding in increasing the diversity of college faculty.

LATEST: Killing diversity hiring programs in Texas colleges could hurt push for more engineers

“DEI has become a political agenda, not a program that follows civil rights law,” Creighton said.

Democrats vehemently opposed the legislation, saying DEI was being mischaracterized by Republicans based on a few isolated incidences, and that it ignored how colleges have used the programs to make sure diverse candidates — once overlooked by universities — are getting a chance to be considered for jobs and future advancement.

The legislation now goes to the Texas House, which must pass the same bill if it is going to make it to Gov. Greg Abbott, who has the final say on whether it will become law.

Creighton argued scrapping DEI would allow more “diversity of thought” and that lawmakers could work on other ways to promote diversity.

But state Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat and one of just two Black members of the Senate, said that didn’t make sense.

“There is no logic in the belief that you can increase diversity by removing the policies and offices that work to promote diversity,” he said.

EXCLUSIVE: Gov. Greg Abbott explains his fight against diversity hiring programs on college campuses

All 12 Democrats in the Texas Senate voted against the bill.

Like Creighton, Abbott has argued DEI programs sound good on the surface but that they have been manipulated to pass on potential job applicants because of their race. He sent warnings to colleges and universities in February, which was followed by schools like the University of Texas, Texas A&M University and the University of Houston all announcing that they would step back from DEI programs or review how their programs work.

But that hasn’t been enough for the Republican-led Legislature, which has threatened to cut funding for colleges that use DEI programs and now has Creighton’s legislation advancing.

jeremy.wallace@houstonchronicle.com

Sen. Creighton said that his anti-DEI bill is “first to market.” Hmm. How can that be?

 Friends,

I am re-posting this in light of a comment made by Sen. Creighton yesterday.

Specifically, Sen. Creighton said that his anti-DEI bill is “first to market.”

Hmm. How can that be when these bills have been in the works nationally for some time?  Specifically, according to figures from PEN America, “state lawmakers in 15 Republican-controlled states have passed 19 bills that seek to restrict teaching on issues of race, racism, and gender, . Laws in seven states specifically address instruction on those topics at public colleges.”

You can hear all of yesterday's hearing on SB 17 here: https://tinyurl.com/mrttabk7

We can even be scientific about Creighton's claim. We, all of us, can take a look at this DEI Legislation Tracker:Explore where college diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are under attack. I plan on taking a look at it myself. 

Sadly, and regardless of his claim of Texas' SB 17 being the first to market, that he extolls this as good policy, is disturbing. At the very least, he manifests both hubris and privilege in not having to take into consideration the diversity of our state and the growing need—and desire, I might add—for unity as people in a multiracial and multiethnic democracy.

Sí se puede! Yes we can!

-Angela Valenzuela

The Plan to Dismantle DEI: Conservatives Take On Colleges' 'Illiberal Bureaucracy'

Friends, 

Do keep your eyes on Texas now that both Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick have jumped into the fray.

• Gov. Greg Abbott tells state agencies to stop considering diversity in hiring
• Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says Texas GOP will 'wipe out' college diversity hiring programs

For the rest of us who bear the brunt of decades of a culture of racism and exclusion in our state, this is terrible news. But then, of course, that's the point. To continue limiting our access, as under-represented, minoritized people to the good life, including access to higher education. 

After all, Black and Brown folks might get so empowered as to threaten the incumbencies of those who currently hold power.

This is flat-out discrimination and has serious implications for academic freedom. We must vigorously challenge this.

Nothing good will come of this spiteful agenda should their bills (HB 1006, HB 1607, and HB 1046) become law.

-Angela Valenzuela

The Plan to Dismantle DEI: Conservatives Take On Colleges' 'Illiberal Bureaucracy'

By  Eric Kelderman | Chronicle of Higher Education | Feb. Issue

Two influential conservative think tanks described in detail on Wednesday how legislatures could dismantle the administrative structures that support diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at public colleges.

Model state legislation, written by scholars at the Manhattan and Goldwater Institutes, if passed, would prohibit colleges from hiring diversity, equity, and inclusion officers; bar trainings that instruct staff to identify and fight against systemic racism; eliminate requirements for employees to commit to diversity statements; and could disallow even institutional commitments to social justice and recommendations that students be addressed by their preferred pronouns.

“This package is meant to reverse illiberal tendencies that have swept across higher education in the past decade,” said Ilya Shapiro, one of the authors of the model bill and a senior fellow and director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute.

It’s the means of the DEI efforts that are more of a problem than the goals of making campuses more diverse and inclusive, Shapiro wrote in an email. “Should colleges afford equal opportunity? Reach out to underprivileged communities to make sure otherwise qualified students aren’t being overlooked? Make students feel welcome and supported on campus? Of course — all of these are no-brainers,” he wrote.

But institutions should pursue those outcomes, he added, in a way that doesn’t “determine and enforce hierarchies of privilege, compel speech, or extend preferential treatment based on race, gender, sexual orientation, etc.”

DEI officers form a kind of revolutionary vanguard on campuses; 

their livelihood can only be justified by discovering — i.e., 

manufacturing — new inequities to be remedied.

In explaining the rationale for the document, Shapiro and his co-authors decry DEI offices as Soviet-style enforcers of left-wing ideology that are wasting tuition money and public tax dollars.

“There is a widespread consensus among conservative academics and higher education experts, as well as many centrist faculty, that university DEI offices are the nerve center of woke ideology on university campuses,” the authors write. “DEI officers form a kind of revolutionary vanguard on campuses; their livelihood can only be justified by discovering — i.e., manufacturing — new inequities to be remedied.”

In addition to prohibiting such administrative units, the proposed legislation would make public colleges that violate its codes subject to lawsuits by individual students, alumni, or faculty. The draft also recommends that money spent on diversity programs be redirected to scholarships for low- and middle-income students at the discretion of a governing board.

The model bill, as written, could have a variety of unintended consequences, said Jeremy C. Young, senior manager for free expression and education at the nonprofit advocacy group PEN America, including diminished efforts to recruit underserved populations as students and faculty members. The bill could also violate free-speech rights by constraining administrators and faculty from even advocating for diversity, equity, and inclusion, and could cause institutions to violate accreditation standards, Young said.

“There’s no way in which it is helpful to have state governments come in and pass something like this,” Young said.

Several colleges in recent years have deployed a litany of efforts to better serve students of color, who today make up the majority of high-school graduates. Colleges have hired DEI officers, reckoned with the ways their institutions in the past banned students of color, and set aside money, programs, and spaces on campus to serve the needs of such students.

The Black Lives Matter movement has created even more momentum. DEI offices are now ubiquitous on the campuses of public and private nonprofit colleges. In addition, improving the outcomes of Black, Hispanic, and Native American students, which often lag behind those of white and Asian students, is one of the top priorities of state higher-education leaders, according to a recent survey from the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

But as those efforts have grown, conservative activists and elected officials have pushed back, arguing that such measures may discriminate against white students and violate academic freedom, and that they are part of a liberal effort to indoctrinate students.

Over the past two years, state lawmakers in 15 Republican-controlled states have passed 19 bills that seek to restrict teaching on issues of race, racism, and gender, according to figures from PEN America. Laws in seven states specifically address instruction on those topics at public colleges.

Many of those laws are likely to face legal challenges. In November, a state court judge in Florida suspended parts of the so-called Stop WOKE Act championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has made it a mission to snuff out diversity, equity, and inclusion proposals at public colleges.

There are also efforts afoot by college leaders to root out color-conscious programs from their campuses. On Wednesday, the Florida College System released a statement, attributed to the presidents of its member institutions, that they would identify and eliminate any academic requirement or program “that compels belief in critical race theory or related concepts such as intersectionality.”

“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,” DeSantis said during his inaugural speech for a second term. A possible presidential contender in 2024, DeSantis has also asked all the state’s public colleges and universities to provide details on spending for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. A Chronicle analysis found that among the state’s public universities, none spent more than 1 percent of their budget on such measures.

The governor has also appointed a bevy of well-known conservatives to the Board of Trustees of New College, the state’s public liberal-arts institution. One of those appointees is Christopher F. Rufo, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and director of the initiative on critical race theory, who has pledged to remake the college into a haven for conservative thought and instruction.

Rufo is also among the authors of the model legislation to ban DEI offices at public colleges.

“Left-wing radicals have spent the past fifty years on a ‘long march through the institutions,’” Rufo tweeted following his appointment. “We are going to reverse that process, starting now.”

Shapiro, another author of the bill, said his own experience of being investigated by the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Affirmative Action at Georgetown University informed his thinking on the model bill. Last year he was named executive director of the Center for the Constitution at Georgetown’s law school. Before he began his duties, his job was put on hold after he criticized the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court in a way that some, including the dean of the law school, considered “appalling.” After a four-month inquiry, Georgetown reinstated Shapiro, but he resigned immediately.

“That lived experience certainly opened my eyes to these issues,” Shapiro said during an interview. “If I were at Georgetown, I wouldn’t be rolling out model legislation.”

The model legislation by Rufo, Shapiro, and Matt Beienburg, director of education policy at the Goldwater Institute, is a 13-page memorandum, including a baker’s dozen of endnotes, that lays out the legal mechanisms for abolishing DEI offices as well as the rationale for the proposal.

“Although DEI sounds innocuous and even salutary, it’s an Orwellian phrase that in reality prevents intellectual diversity, impedes equal opportunity, and excludes those who don’t conform to progressive orthodoxy,” the authors write.

The bill defines DEI offices as any administrative effort meant to “manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of the faculty or student body with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity.” The bill carves out numerous exceptions for lawyers who ensure compliance with the requirements of federal law, such as Title IX, which prohibits discrimination based on sex, and Title VI, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. Other exceptions include academic programs, courses or research, and the activities of student groups.

The bill would also bar colleges from taking any official stand on a long list of social issues, including “a particular, widely contested opinion referencing unconscious or implicit bias, cultural appropriation, allyship, transgender ideology, microaggressions, group marginalization, anti-racism, systemic oppression, social justice, intersectionality, neo-pronouns, heteronormativity, disparate impact, gender theory, racial or sexual privilege.”

Mandatory diversity training prohibited under the model bill includes any requirement for a student, faculty member, or job applicant“purporting to describe or expose structures, systems, or relations of power, privilege.” Such requirements could include not only traditional trainings and workshops, but also participation in “ any administrative process or decision-making body,” the proposed bill states.

“Even when DEI officials claim their training is ‘voluntary,’ it is often in fact required for faculty who wish to perform the most basic roles on campus,” the proposed bill states. “At most leading public universities, DEI training is mandatory for faculty who wish to serve on any hiring committee, which is a function nearly all faculty perform.”

The bill also argues that diversity statements, which are becoming more common in the hiring and promotion processes at colleges, should be outlawed because they function as a kind of loyalty oath or litmus test for employment.

Under the bill, colleges would not be able to require job applicants to share their “views on, experience with, or contributions to diversity, equity, and/or inclusion; marginalized groups; anti-racism; social justice; intersectionality; confessing one’s race-based privilege; or related concepts.”

Other states are already considering similar measures. A bill introduced in Texas late last year would prohibit “any office that funds, promotes, sponsors, or supports an initiative or formulation of diversity, equity, and inclusion beyond” federal nondiscrimination requirements.

The Board of Governors for the University of North Carolina system is considering a policy that could bar the use of diversity statements in hiring by prohibiting any requirement for employees or applicants to “affirmatively ascribe to or opine about beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles regarding matters of contemporary political debate or social action.”

Such efforts still face numerous hurdles and are likely be challenged in court.

Joseph Cohn, legislative and policy director at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said his organization shares some of the same concerns about diversity statements and other measures colleges use to create a diverse and inclusive campus. In some cases, colleges may be trampling the First Amendment rights of faculty, FIRE argues, by requiring them to “demonstrate their commitment to ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion.’”

But the model bill and other measures must strike a difficult balance, Cohn said, between prohibiting diversity statements but also not barring employees or students from sharing opinions that support diversity, equity, and inclusion.

The Texas bill, for example, strays into areas that would be unconstitutional, FIRE said, because it would require a “policy that prohibits students from ‘endorsement or dissuasion’ of a particular religion, lifestyle, or culture.”

Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said campus officials should fear the proposed bill because it would silence essential conversations on the continued impacts of racism.

“Everyone in higher education needs to be alert and aware of what’s going on.”

A version of this article appeared in the February 3, 2023, issue.

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