Students scramble in wake of DEI law

Walking through the University of Texas at Austin campus, senior Kelly Solis sees the burnt orange and white banners everywhere — Make It Your Texas, Make It Our Texas — that are supposed to make her feel like a welcomed part of UT.

Now, they just make her mad.

At UT and other public universities, a new state law banning diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives has resulted in school leaders cutting thousands of dollars from student organizations, closing meeting centers, canceling cultural events and discontinuing support services for minority students.

Some students and advocates have set up online fundraisers and publicly complained about the lack of university support, but many feel the response has been muted.

“Sometimes it feels like we’re reaching out, trying to reach a broader audience, but nobody’s really listening,” Solis said.

Latinx Community Affairs hopes to raise up to $5,000 to continue holding events like its new student orientation, monthly community engagement activities, and leadership and career programs for students. The funding used to come from the university, according to its GoFundMe. To date, the group has raised $765.

Solis said the group hasn’t been able to hold events for members this semester because it’s too expensive to organize offcampus events. She said that if they don’t reach their fundraising goal, they likely will have to consider collaborating with other organizations to host joint, smaller-scale gatherings or look to community partners

for support.

Another group, Afrikan American Affairs, used to receive around $81,000 a year from the university for events like New Black Student Weekend, Black Graduation and Black Family Day. Now, UT departments are “scared to assist because they do not understand the parameters” of the law, its fundraiser description reads. With a goal of $8,000, they have raised $812.

Without the university’s backing, many of the groups are finding it difficult to keep students and others who aren’t directly affected engaged with their efforts.

In February, students formed a coalition to challenge UT’s “overcompliance” with the law, and others created an Instagram account promoting the hashtag #NotOurTexas, offering students a space to share how the law has affected them. Only a handful of users have embraced the tag.

More than 3,000 students voted in a campus election in early March on a referendum to replace the beloved Multicultural Engagement Center with a new student meeting space. University officials told Hearst Newspapers that “conversations have begun with student leaders, but it will be a lengthy process of discussion.”

For Lacey Reynolds, who heads UT’s first Black honor society, these setbacks are just the start of what she said will be a “major comeback” for DEI initiatives at the student level.

Reynolds’ society organized a student caucus in February to address the new law, providing students a chance to voice their initial questions or concerns to a panel of lawmakers and civil rights activists.

Since the caucus, Reynolds said she has seen an uptick in students actively opposing the law, and her group plans to present survey data they have been collecting on how the law is affecting students to the university in the coming months.

“I see students coming together more than they have in the past,” Reynolds said. “We have the driver’s seat. Our voices are powerful, and they matter.”

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, described the new antiDEI law as intentionally vague and said it pressures universities into overcompliance. In the cases of flagship schools like UT and Texas A&M, the intimidation worked.

“University presidents and their staff are going to have to buck up and play their historic role, which is to interpret and defend their institution, their faculty and their students against external threats,” Jillson said. “And that’s what the state Legislature constitutes today, a threat to the university’s ability to do its job.”

When asked about the complaints from students and critics of the law, university officials referred back to UT President Jay Hartzell’s December 2023 statement.

“Even while we are complying with the new law and policy, many things will not change — including our commitment to attracting, supporting and retaining exceptional talent across diverse backgrounds and perspectives, celebrating the collective strength of our community and fostering a sense of belonging for all Longhorns,” Hartzell said at the time.

Some student groups said they recognize UT’s position and are working with outside groups for alternative assistance and funding.

One of the dismantled programs looking for new support is the Monarch program, which used to provide immigrant students with advising, mentoring and workshops for academic, career, financial and mental health resources.

The program has partly carried over to a group without university ties called Rooted, which advocates for immigrant students at UT.

UT alumna Ana Hernández, a founding member of Rooted, said they initially believed the Monarch program was exempt from the law because, as its website reads, “immigrants are not a single racial or ethnic group.”

Rooted created a petition against the law and published an email template for the community to sign and send to UT administration, demanding the reinstatement of the Monarch program and a rationale for closing it. Hernández said the university had not communicated with them since the shutdown, which struck her as calloused.

“It was really frustrating after all of the years of activism, and all the progress that we had made, to see UT unilaterally end that in what felt like overnight,” Hernández said.

The Texas NAACP also has met with minority students and urged them to report any racial discrimination in the aftermath of the law, said NAACP state President Gary Bledsoe. Although Bledsoe said the NAACP had not received any written complaints as of the end of March, many have verbally expressed concerns that the defunding of student programs and research has gone beyond the reach of the law.

“People are afraid,” Bledsoe said. “I’ve told them that anonymity would be guaranteed if they needed it. But there’s a lot of trepidation.”

Derrick Wilson, who chairs the Texas Young Republican Federation, said the new anti-DEI law has done a good job of tamping down on what he calls the discriminatory nature of identity-based initiatives.

“You’re still going to have leftisttype student organizations that are going to want to see the DEI programs back in their full glory,” Wilson said. “They’re not going to be able to bring back DEI programs as they were, and nor should they.”

Last week, state Sen. Brandon Creighton of Conroe told university chancellors and regents he was worried that some may only be paying lip service to the new law, which he sponsored. A Senate committee plans to hold hearings in May to receive updates from universities.

“I am deeply concerned with the possibility that many institutions may choose to merely rename their offices or employee titles,” Creighton wrote in letters to each of the state’s seven public university systems. “This letter should serve as a reminder that this practice is unacceptable — and also a reminder that (the law) encompasses stringent enforcement provisions, including the potential freezing of university funding and legal ramifications for non-compliance.”

Hartzell announced Tuesday that the school was closing its Division of Campus and Community Engagement, citing the DEI ban. The division held student services and programs such as Disability and Access and the Women’s Community Center. Hartzell said in a statement that the university would work to ensure those services continue through the end of the semester.

As part of the closure, at least 60 UT staffers who worked in DEI-related roles were fired, according to the Austin American Statesman

State Reps. Ron Reynolds, DMissouri City, and Sheryl Cole, DAustin, who are members of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus, are pushing for revisions to the law in the GOP-led state Legislature. Cole cited a meeting with Hartzell in the coming months to discuss UT’s implementation of the law, which she sees as “overcompliant.”

Reynolds called the law “a slap in the face because Texas is such a diverse state, and our diversity is our strength,” he said.

“Unless we do something about it, we’re going to see a significant decrease in minority students at these universities and campuses, which were already representing a small sliver of the student population,” Reynolds added.

He said he fears the future of diverse recruitment in Texas higher education, with a current Black student population of 4.5% at UT.

Solis said she recognizes that the coming months for Monarch and other voided programs will be an “uphill battle.” But she is also hopeful that their creative workarounds to the law will prove beneficial for students.

“Social justice work isn’t overnight work. It’s an extended, sort of long haul, that we all undertake together,” Solis said.