Texas on the Verge of Banning Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Offices in Public Universities
“Both chambers approved the final version of Senate Bill 17 Sunday and it now heads to Gov. Greg Abbott.”
Once this is in place, hopefully it will serve as a model for other states.
The Texas Tribune reports:
Texas lawmakers find consensus on bill banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices in public universities
Texas public universities’ diversity, equity and inclusion offices likely have six months left before they’re banished.
State lawmakers came to an agreement Saturday on legislation that would ban DEI offices, programs and training at publicly funded universities, largely adopting the version that the Texas House approved a week ago, with some minor changes.
Notably, the conference committee of lawmakers appointed to hash out the differences between the two chambers’ versions of the bill removed the House provision that would ensure universities reassign DEI office employees to new positions with similar pay. Instead, universities may provide letters of recommendation for employees.
Both chambers approved the final version of Senate Bill 17 Sunday and it now heads to Gov. Greg Abbott. If he signs the bill or allows it to become law without his signature, it will make Texas the second state in the country, after Florida, to ban such initiatives in public higher education.
Before the House vote, Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, made a plea to members to vote against the legislation, pointing to the fact that the NAACP recently issued a travel advisory to Florida because of recent legislation, including a ban of DEI programs in higher education.
“Don’t be on the wrong side of history,” Reynolds said. “Don’t let Texas be the next state to get a travel advisory. Don’t let the politics of extremism get in the way in the progress that we’ve made over the years.”
The House approved the final version of the bill with a vote of 82 to 61.
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“Texas public universities’ diversity, equity and inclusion offices likely have six months left before they’re banished.”
That’s a long time to clean out one’s desk.
What will they change the names to (without otherwise changing anything except the public face)? Something extremely Orwellian I’m sure. Office of Compliance?
I’ve been following the anti-DEI bills since before the session started. I’ll be writing up a more thorough report on how it all went down once I get a chance to chat with some of my Texas Capitol sources (who are worn out by all the usual end-of-session craziness).
In terse summary, SB17 barely squeaked in (quite literally at the last minute), but the bill is nowhere as good as it is being claimed. The RINO’s in the House (reportedly at the instructions of Speaker Dale Phelan) pretty much emasculated the bill.
Key is that SB17 has no meaningful enforcement mechanism. So, for example, if you are the woke dean of the UT business school, and you decide to just change the name of the DEI officer but keep doing exactly the same things (e.g., preferential hiring based on minority status, requiring “diversity statements,” spending funds on DEI training and initiatives, etc.), what happens to you?
Absolutely nothing.
If the once-every-four year audit catches you, you then are given six months to “cure” the violations of the law, but neither you nor UT suffer any penalty or consequence for violating the law. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the games the bureaucrats will be playing, because they have no disincentive to violate the law.
The original draft of the bill included robust private enforcement mechanisms, statutory damages, and personal liability of those involved (no immunity). Those got stripped out in favor of enforcement by the AG and a mandatory one year suspension without pay for employees who violated the law (mandatory termination for the second offense). Senate Committee washed that out in favor of a complete loss of all state funds for the next fiscal year if an institution was found to have violated the law. House Committee watered that down to the nothingburger described above.
The Regional Accreditation agencies should merely revoke the existing accreditation of every Texas college and university imposing such restrictions, regardless if their action was prompted by state law.
Why?
They’ll just keep doing the same thing under a different name and play a game of whack-a-mole with the legislature.
Yup, which makes the Lege’s stripping of any teeth in SB17 all the more baffling.
“Don’t be on the wrong side of history,” Reynolds said. “Don’t let Texas be the next state to get a travel advisory.”
No, not that BRIAR PATCH!
Safe Guess: The DEI crews won’t be giving up their rice bowls easily. They’ll undoubtedly attempt to worm their way into the campus bureaucracy and operate under different names. Kind of like in the movie “Casino” when Mafia shill Sam Rothstein runs a Vegas hotel without a license using the title “Food and Beverage Director.”
They won’t have to “worm” their way into anything. I’ll bet we’ll see the administrations setting up Potemkin offices where the diversicrats just continue their activities.
Many of us warned the Lege that this is going to happen unless they put some teeth in the bill. But at the end of the day, Phelan’s minions pulled even the dull teeth in the bill passed by the Senate, so that there is zero disincentive to blatantly violate the law. “Yeah, we’re doing it.
Whaddya gonna do about it?”
At least Florida’s law has teeth.
And the news reports that other states are considering like DEI bans, I believe Iowa, Missouri and South Carolina were mentioned.