UT community reacts to division closing
Layoffs follow enactment of Texas’ anti-DEI law
AUSTIN, Texas – Students and community members are reeling after the University of Texas announced it was closing the Division of Campus and Community Engagement – previously known as the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement – and told dozens of employees Tuesday that they would lose their jobs in 90 days or more, according to two people with knowledge of the layoffs.
UT President Jay Hartzell said in an email to the university community that in implementing changes as required by Senate Bill 17, the state’s anti-DEI law that went into effect Jan. 1, the Division of Campus and Community Engagement would be closing after evaluating and eliminating programs that “now overlap with our efforts elsewhere.” He said the remaining programs that the division exclusively offered would be transferred to other departments where they would complement existing services, and he assured that the Division of Student Affairs would work to make student-facing services available through the semester.
“The new law has changed the scope of some programs on campus, making them broader and creating duplication with long-standing existing programs supporting students, faculty, and staff,” Hartzell wrote to the campus in reference to the school’s changes being made to comply with the new anti-DEI law.
UT would not confirm to the Ausrin American-Statesman how many positions or programs have been eliminated. The Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors released a joint statement Wednesday calling for the university to be more transparent about the layoffs, and multiple elected officials and social justice groups have called on UT to reinstate the eliminated positions and programs.
Division of Campus and Community
Engagement staff members were called into a meeting Tuesday morning where a human resources representative verbally delivered the news that some of them would be laid off, according to a staff member who was laid off and spoke to the Statesman on the condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to speak about the layoffs. The staff member said they later received a confirmation letter that they would be laid off.
‘We had no idea we would be hit this hard’
In the Division of Diversity and Campus Engagement’s impact report last year, articles described how the division was working to support students academically and professionally and talked about how the division’s work enhanced the university’s strategic plan, “Change Starts Here.”
“As President Hartzell noted while announcing the ‘Change Starts Here’ plan, diversity and excellence are inseparable,” the 2023 report said. “We know that many people of different groups and identities need to be at the table to solve the world’s biggest challenges and dream up new innovations for a better tomorrow. That is why our units are supporting and uplifting diverse talent in an effort to make The University of Texas at Austin the world’s most impactful public university.”
After UT made changes to the division to comply with SB 17, its four core pillars were student success, campus engagement, community engagement, and access and belonging.
Isabel Bellard, a UT junior, was part of the Fearless Leadership Institute at the division, a program that before Jan. 1 worked to support Black and Hispanic female students on campus but later adapted to support all women after SB 17 went into effect. Bellard said Tuesday that she found out the leadership institute was not on the list of saved programs. An hour after Hartzell’s email announcing the division’s closure, Bellard said she saw the website was removed from UT’s server.
Only 4.5% of UT students in the fall 2023 semester were Black, according to a university fact sheet. Bellard said the program helped her find a community on campus with shared experiences, as well as take advantage of opportunities she wouldn’t have otherwise had.
“Black people at UT, when they get here as students, the first question is, ‘Where all the other Black people?’” Bellard said. “Most Black students, they’re one of maybe two, maybe three other people of color in the room, and so that creates this really isolating space for people of color. (The Fearless Leadership Institute) was actually the space that said, ‘Hey, there is a space for (you).’”
She said the division’s programs are essential to bolster graduation rates and retention on campus for marginalized students. Black students, for instance, were not allowed to attend UT until the 1950s.
“In order for any marginalized students to be treated fairly at the University of Texas, because they weren’t accepted for so long, diversity and identity-specific programs and partnerships are critical in developing students’ sense of belonging” on a campus where white students are the majority, Bellard said.
Lacey Reynolds, a UT junior and the president of the Onyx Honors Society, said she attended an emergency meeting with hundreds of students Tuesday night to process the news and action items.
“We didn’t see this coming,” Reynolds said. “We had no idea we would be hit this hard.”
All students are affected by this, Reynolds said, adding that students are planning to stand up for staff members – many of whom felt like “families away from home.”
Shocked and angry, UT senior Amanda Garcia, an organizer for Texas Students for DEI, also attended the student emergency meeting Tuesday night. Over the summer and fall, Garcia said she had been in meetings with administrators and student groups to discuss how SB 17 would be implemented on campus. But, she said, she had no idea this was coming.
However, Garcia said, students are mobilizing and coming together in “unprecedented” ways to figure out how to support staff members who were laid off and move forward.
“We’re more determined now than ever,” Garcia said. “I think they really underestimated how much these staff members meant to students.”