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Gov. Greg Abbott Needs to Answer Questions About DEI Policies at Texas Universities

Gov. Greg Abbott Needs to Answer Questions About DEI Policies at Texas Universities

“Your history consistently shows that you have either tacitly supported the exact policies that your office now acknowledges are illegal or have been unwilling to do anything about them.”

Abbott is talking the talk on DEI, but he needs to walk the walk too.

Louis K. Bonham writes at Minding the Campus:

An Open Letter to Texas Governor Abbott on Illegal DEI Practices: Where’s the Beef?

Dear Gov. Abbott,

After National Association of Scholars Senior Fellow John Sailer’s bombshell report in the Wall Street Journal documented the use of “diversity statements” as ideological hiring filters at Texas Tech University, your chief of staff hastily issued a statement reminding state employees that such practices are, in fact, illegal. This has been cited in the press as evidence that you, like Florida Governor DeSantis and officials in Oklahoma, South Carolina, and many other states, are now going to crack down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices at Texas state universities.

Forgive me if I do not share such optimism, and if I question whether your office’s recent statement was sincere. Your history consistently shows that you have either tacitly supported the exact policies that your office now acknowledges are illegal or have been unwilling to do anything about them.

The explosion of DEI programs and their use of illegal racial, ethnic, sex, and ideological discrimination by Texas state universities—especially the institutionalization of the Kendian ethos that such discrimination is a moral imperative, notwithstanding that, as United States Court of Appeals Judge James Ho has noted, such a worldview directly conflicts with federal law—has occurred during your tenure as our governor. To the best of my knowledge, you have been in office long enough to have appointed every single regent at every Texas state university. Yet none of these regents—who are supposed protect Texans’ interests, and not merely enjoy luxury accommodations at sporting events and the perks of overseeing multi-billion-dollar endowments—have done anything to put a stop to these illegal activities.

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Comments

The Gentle Grizzly | February 23, 2023 at 9:34 am

“ Abbott is talking the talk on DEI, but he needs to walk the walk too.”

You might want to use a different metaphor….

Make him answer for the state’s HUB purchasing program while you’re at it. Many institutions have implicit, if not explicit, quotas for purchasing from “historically underutilized” businesses under that sinister racial preference.

https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/divisions/procurement/texas-hub-program

This is a question I’ve pondered for some time. The Texas governor controls the appointment of trustees to the public universities of the state. Yet, his appointees allow critical race practices to be implemented at the universities. The governor claims to be a conservative. Moreover, the Texas attorney general, who also claims to be a conservative, has taken no legal actions of which I’m aware to stop these practices. Rather, it’s been America First Legal that has been the one to file a suit against Texas A&M University. What gives?

Louis K. Bonham | February 23, 2023 at 12:07 pm

Thanks for the coverage. Coda:

I sent a draft of the article to the press flacks for Abbott and UT Monday morning, indicating the article would drop on Wednesday, and asking them to contact me if they needed additional time.

Wednesday morning, no answer, so article went up. I forwarded the link to the press flacks at 6AM.

Later that afternoon, this happens:

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/education/2023/02/22/ut-university-texas-system-equity-diversity-inclusion-policies-halted-campuses-review-guidelines/69933482007/

Coincidence?