UT layoffs over DEI were mostly women, people of color

The dozens of employees laid off by the University of Texas at Austin this month when it closed a former diversity, equity and inclusion office were mostly women and people of color, some of whom had worked for decades at the school, according to newly released records.

In all, the university says it let go of 49 staffers as part of a restructuring to comply with a new state law banning DEI. They include the head of the university’s women’s center, the director of the Office of the Vice President for Campus and Community Engagement and the director of the Fearless Leadership Institute, a program that provides resources and networking to Black women on campus.

Black staffers were disproportionately affected, making up nearly a third of the cuts while accounting for just 7% of the total university staff, excluding tenured faculty. Roughly three-fourths of the employees let go were women, though they make up just 55% of the total staff.

The layoffs also affected staff across campus, including at Dell Medical School, McCombs School of Business and the LBJ School of Public Affairs, according to the records.

The layoffs have roiled students and advocates, who argue that administrators are overreacting to the law and weakening the schools’ ability to recruit new talent.

University President Jay Hartzell told faculty this week that the action was meant to reduce redundancies after the mandated DEI cuts and to head off future funding cuts from the GOP-led Legislature, which passed the ban last year.

“We have to make choices to worry about the long-run future

of the university,” Hartzell said in his first public remarks since the cuts. “It’s not just are we compliant with SB17 in the short run, but also what are the choices we make?”

On top of the 49 layoffs, eight associate or assistant deans were moved back to faculty positions. It was not immediately clear if the moves also came with pay cuts.

The university declined to comment Thursday. Hearst Newspapers obtained layoff letters and a list of all affected staff, including their titles, salaries and demographic information, from the school through a records request. Hearst reached out to several listed employees, some of whom did not respond to requests for comment. Others declined to be interviewed.

Democratic lawmakers and civil rights advocates were outraged by the layoffs and said they feared that most of the people losing their jobs would be racial and ethnic minorities. “There appears to be a real issue there and potential discrimination,” Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe said at a news conference last week.

Presented with Hearst’s findings Thursday, Bledsoe said he thought race had “clearly” been a motivating factor in the layoffs.

“It makes no sense even if you talk about the issue of cost savings,” he said. “Why is it that you must save costs on the backs of Black and brown employees and female employees?”

The university announced the layoffs April 2. Staff will keep their jobs until July 5, according to the notice letters sent by the administration, and will receive special consideration for any open positions. “It is important that over the next 94 days, we continue to prioritize our students and their experiences,” some of the letters said.

Administrators changed the name and focus of the DEI office at the beginning of the year, when the ban took effect, as well as many of its programs. Hartzell said some programs will move under other areas of campus, but many others will close at the end of this school year.

That includes the Women’s Community Center, which provides students with free pregnancy tests, condoms, menstrual products, and HIV and STI testing, among other services.

After the UT-Austin layoffs, UT-Dallas announced that it was laying off 20 workers and closing its Office of Campus Resources and Support, a new office meant to comply with the DEI ban.

Both moves came after state Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Conroe Republican and the sponsor of the ban, warned university officials that simply renaming DEI offices and job titles was not enough to comply with the law.

Creighton’s Senate committee plans to hold hearings in May to receive updates from UT-Austin and other university administrators.

UT-Austin student Kelly Solis, who leads Latinx Community Affairs, said she was “completely shocked” to see so many individuals with long employment records at the university let go.

“It kind of gives the impression that the university is firing anybody and everybody who has some connection to DEI initiatives,” Solis said. “It comes across as the university sort of used you as a loose end that they need to expel from the university before Hartzell has to testify.”

Other critics say the layoffs will have a “disproportionate, negative impact” on the future of recruiting diverse and talented academics and students.

Kimberly Clarida, the higher education policy analyst for the left-leaning research group Every Texan, said the UT-Austin and UT-Dallas layoffs will weaken trust between universities and their employees.

“How can you trust an organization who says that they’re going to continue to do the good work, but when it’s time for them to stand behind that, they quickly fold and you lose your job?” she said.