What’s New
Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama, a Republican, this week signed into law a measure that prohibits public colleges from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or programs and restricts diversity training and diversity statements. The law, Senate Bill 129, also requires public colleges to designate bathrooms to be used according to a person’s sex at birth. The law takes effect October 1.
Alabama follows Florida, Texas, and Utah in banning DEI programs, offices, and other efforts amid a wave of state legislation seeking to curtail colleges’ efforts to recruit and retain students, faculty, and staff members from historically underrepresented groups.
The Details
Alabama’s law will also prohibit public colleges from requiring students, employees, or contractors to personally affirm any of a list of eight “divisive concepts,” including that “any race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin is inherently superior or inferior.”
The law will also prohibit public colleges from requiring students, employees, or contractors to attend any DEI program, training, or class that advocates for any of the “divisive concepts” described in the law. Under the law, public colleges would not be allowed to penalize anyone who declines to accept a divisive concept or a diversity statement, and employees who knowingly violate the law may be disciplined or terminated. The law also requires that public colleges ensure that bathrooms be “designated for use by individuals based on their biological sex” as stated on their birth certificate.
Ivey released a statement Wednesday that said, “My administration has and will continue to value Alabama’s rich diversity, however, I refuse to allow a few bad actors on college campuses — or wherever else for that matter — to go under the acronym of DEI, using taxpayer funds, to push their liberal political movement counter to what the majority of Alabamians believe.”
But Lily D. McNair, a former president of Tuskegee University, called the bill “one of the most repressive educational gag orders in the country” in an opinion piece published in the Alabama Reflector. The law, she wrote, will “restrict discussions of American history and culture in a variety of disciplines by prohibiting professors from assigning different ideas about the challenging issues of race, gender, and identity. Even worse — and unique to SB 129 — is a provision that would prevent faculty from assigning books or films where the author merely expresses that they themselves feel complicit in past wrongs.”
In addition, McNair wrote, the law will prohibit public colleges from sponsoring programs based on identity groups, which in her view “could well ban recognition or funding for Black student unions at public universities, including at Alabama’s eight public HBCUs.”
The Backdrop
The Alabama bill passed easily in both chambers of the Legislature but drew criticism from advocates for underrepresented students, who argue that colleges’ diversity, equity, and inclusion work helps support students who have not always felt welcome in higher education, including women and people of color.
Advocates for academic freedom also opposed the bill. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, for example, urged Ivey to veto the bill, arguing that it placed an unconstitutional burden on the discussion of certain topics in classrooms and imposed unconstitutional restrictions on the free speech of student organizations. (FIRE did not object to the law’s restrictions on noncredit training, on the grounds that the government can restrict its own speech.)
Since last year, at least 80 bills have been introduced in 28 states and the U.S. Congress to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in higher education, according to The Chronicle’s DEI Legislation Tracker, which follows bills that aim to ban or curtail DEI offices, programs, or staff; diversity statements; identity-based preferences in hiring or admissions; or mandatory diversity training. All four concepts were outlined in model state legislation released last year by the Manhattan and Goldwater Institutes. DEI critics argue that the work is ineffective, a waste of taxpayer dollars, and presents a biased view of the world.
The “divisive concepts” found in the Alabama law and several others take their cue from an executive order signed by President Donald J. Trump in 2020 targeting “race and sex stereotyping.” The order has spawned multiple state laws with similar provisions around the country aimed at either K-12, college campuses, or both. President Biden rescinded the order on his first day in office.
Utah’s law restricting DEI, signed in January, prohibits public colleges from having DEI offices or staff, using diversity statements in hiring and promotion, and considering characteristics including race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin in admissions or employment; it will take effect July 1.
Florida’s law, which took effect last July, was the first in the country to prohibit public colleges from spending money on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs; the law also places restrictions on how general-education courses discuss historical events, identity politics, and topics such as racism and sexism. Texas’ law went into effect January 1 and also bans DEI offices and programs, the use of diversity statements, and the consideration of identity characteristics in hiring.
What to Watch For
Critics of the Alabama law will be watching to see how it is implemented. The University of Florida announced this month that it had closed its Office of the Chief Diversity Officer and eliminated all DEI positions and administrative appointments. In Texas, The Chronicle reported, some DEI administrators were recorded on undercover video talking about continuing to do the work of DEI by being “creative.”
