Texas colleges affirm need for diversity
In a candid memo, Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp urged his admissions teams to “get off their butts” and recruit more Black and brown students — a direct response to questions about the institution’s priorities after a directive to slash diversity statements from applications on the governor’s orders.
“All of The Texas A&M System universities should be recruiting those students aggressively!” Sharp wrote March 3. “I’m tired of our people thinking that they are focusing on improving diversity by just putting words on a website and having more and more staff sitting in diversity administrative offices. It takes more than that!”
Sharp’s communication provides the first glimpse of how Texas’ public universities might work to maintain or improve diversity despite changes in hiring programs necessitated by Gov. Greg Abbott’s threats on diversity, equity and inclusion work, or DEI, in state-funded institutions. While Abbott contends that the programs have unlawfully led to hiring decisions based on race, diversity advocates say the programs are meant to advance equal opportunity for minority populations.
The memo from A&M’S chancellor echoes actions from universities across the nation that show the work will likely continue, only without the DEI label, according to one professor who studies diversity initiatives in higher education.
“This whole idea about candidates including diversity statements — it’s not that they’re not important — but they’re more symbolic,” said Lori Patton Davis, chair of the Department of Educational Studies at Ohio State University. “Diverse hiring was happening well before these sorts of statements were required in the first place. Those (hiring efforts) will continue, but institutions of higher education and those that are leading diversity offices will have to think more strategically how they engage in recruitment.”
DEI has become a defining initiative for universities that hope to correct decades of discrimination in higher education systems and boost access for minority populations who have systemically struggled to attain college degrees or enter academic careers at the same rate as whites.
Those policies have recently
come under attack from several conservative leaders around the country, with Florida Gov. Ron Desantis decrying them as too “woke” and proposing an outright ban on the programs.
In Texas, opposition comes as the Republicandominated Legislature has threatened funding for universities that espouse DEI, and Abbott’s chief of staff sent a letter on Feb. 6 warning state agencies, including public universities, that programs based in DEI might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws when they cause hiring departments to favor people of some demographics over others.
In an exclusive interview with Hearst Newspapers, Abbott said he believes that the diversity, equity and inclusion programs proliferating on college campuses have drifted from their intent and have also become part of a larger effort to “purge conservative thought.” A&M University System institutions are among several around the state that are banning requirements for job or admissions candidates to submit statements surrounding their promise to support or advance diversity, equity and inclusion. (Some universities and departments used the statements, and others didn’t, Sharp said in his initial order.) The University of Houston System issued a similar directive last week, while the University of Texas System has paused new DEI initiatives and launched a review of its existing policies.
Texas Tech University is also reviewing its hiring practices after a conservative advocacy group raised concerns over how the school’s biology department rated job candidates’ commitments to diversity, the Texas Tribune reported.
Patton Davis said she doesn’t anticipate universities will lessen their commitment to diversity, especially because many institutions remain behind in placing minority students and faculty in higher education at levels on par with their state populations.
DEI may become discarded as a buzzword, she said, but higher education institutions will continue to recruit applicants who can expand their demographics and introduce more variety of thought.
“There’s something to be said about a medical school that has no Black women, but there’s a group of people talking about Black women’s mortality rates,” Patton Davis said. “The world is too robust to have any one group dictating how medicine works or how laws work or how a curriculum works.”
Abbott said he also supports diversity on campuses, even if he doesn’t support DEI. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board’s plans to increase the number of Texas adults with higher education degrees or credentials also come with a charge to reach their goal equitably.
Population estimates place Texas’ demographics at 40 percent Hispanic or Latino; 40 percent white; 13 percent Black and 5 percent Asian, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Several of the state’s flagship universities remain largely white and Asian, both in their student and faculty populations.
In fall 2021, the Texas A&M flagship’s students were 22 percent Hispanic or Latino; 53 percent white; 3 percent Black and 10 percent Asian. That same year, faculty members were 54 percent white; 7 percent Hispanic; 4 percent Black; and 9 percent Asian.
Sharp’s memo, sent to CEOS at the system’s 11 universities and eight agencies, pointed to missed opportunities in recruiting minorities. About 2,000 Black students in Texas graduated recently in the top 10 percent of their classes but didn’t enroll in college, he said, using extrapolated data from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
“That’s OUR fault for not getting those kids into our classrooms,” he wrote.
In 2022, Ut-austin’s student population was almost 25 percent Hispanic or Latino, 35 percent white, 4 percent Black and 21 percent Asian. The faculty was 10 percent Hispanic or Latino, 69 percent white, 5 percent Black and 10 percent Asian, according to university data.
The University of Houston’s fall 2022 head count was more diverse, with 31 percent of students listed as Hispanic or Latino; 24 percent white; 10 percent Black and 22 percent Asian. Ranked faculty were less so, with only 9 percent of them Hispanic; 54 percent white; 5 percent Black and 25 percent Asian.
Officials at both universities said the changes to DEI have not affected their priorities of diversifying their communities, even as some Democrats worry about the potential effects.
“Our commitment to diversity has not changed,” said Shawn Lindsey, associate vice chancellor of the UH System. “We have an affirmative action plan for each campus and continue to operate pursuant to those plans. (These plans are required by federal law.)”
State Sen. Borris Miles said he feels that UH “caved to political pressure,” however, and believes the removal of DEI statements will hurt diversity on campus.
“Removing diversity in hiring sends a terrible message that will hurt UH from attracting the culturally rich diverse workforce that helped it become a rising Tier 1 research institution,” he said. “This is yet another act of political theater pushed by the state’s leadership on our agencies and universities that will do nothing but hurt our state.”
Ut-austin leaders assured that would not be the case. “UT -Austin remains committed to attracting exceptionally talented people to our campus with diverse backgrounds and perspectives,” said Mike Rosen, associate vice president for university communications. “We serve and celebrate our students, faculty and staff, and our diversity, and provide incredible opportunities to better lives and change the world.”
“All of The Texas A&M System universities should be recruiting those (minority) students aggressively!”
Texas A&M System Chancellor John Sharp