Claremont’s scorecard on how Texas universities responded to DEI bans

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

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Last year, the Claremont Institute led an anti-DEI effort in Texas that resulted in Governor Greg Abbott signing into law a bill that eliminated “diversity, equity and inclusion” offices for all state-funded colleges and universities. It was a hard-fought battle and well worth the effort.

Of course, we expected this outcome. After all, we authored the anti-DEI blueprints that toppled the higher education cartels in Idaho and Florida and which have been successfully imitated across the United States.

But we also learned something very important: unless there is follow-through and public accountability, the purveyors of DEI will find new and creative ways to keep it in our school systems.

Where Are They Now?: A Preliminary Study on How Texas Universities Responded to DEI Bans is our way of keeping the men and women who control Texas higher education honest. It is, if you like, a blueprint of accountability.

READ THE REPORT
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Written by Scott Yenor, Senior Director of State Coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, the report surveys university compliance with Texas Senate Bill 17—the crucial legislation passed in 2023 with the aim of ensuring that colleges and universities in Texas did not “establish or maintain a diversity, equity, and inclusion office” or promote “differential treatment of or providing special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity.”

The results are surprising and, in many cases, cause for concern. For instance, some schools merely rebranded (but did not close) their DEI offices; other universities kept on DEI administrators but changed their titles. And while some schools score better than others, none of the schools surveyed—Texas A&M, University of Texas, Austin, Texas Tech University, University of North Texas, University of Houston—fully complied with SB17.

We hope Where Are They Now? will call attention to the loopholes and sleights-of-hand the DEI crusaders are using to dig in, flout the intent of Texas’ law, and remain ensconced in the ideological hothouses of academia. Because if they can get away with it in Texas, they will try to get away with it everywhere else.

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