The Chronicle is tracking legislation that would prohibit colleges from having diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or staff; ban mandatory diversity training; forbid institutions to use diversity statements in hiring and promotion; or bar colleges from considering race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin in admissions or employment. All four proscriptions were identified in model state legislation proposed last year by the Goldwater Institute and the Manhattan Institute. For more coverage, read the articles in our Assault on DEI package.
Updated August 30, 2024.
We are tracking
86 bills in
28 states and the U.S. Congress. Since 2023,
14
have final
legislative approval.
54
have been tabled,
failed to pass, or vetoed.
What Would the Legislation Restrict?
We Want to Hear From You
Have efforts to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion had an impact on your campus? We want to hear from you. Fill out this Google Form to tell us what you’ve experienced.
Have we missed any bills in your state? Please email us at DEITracker@chronicle.com. For media inquiries, email Maureen Ryan at maureen.ryan@chronicle.com.
Contributors: Adrienne Lu, Jacquelyn Elias, Audrey Williams June, Amelia Benavides-Colón, J. Brian Charles, Sonel Cutler, Amanda Friedman, Erin Gretzinger, Emma Hall, Maggie Hicks, Helen Huiskes, Forest Hunt, Katherine Mangan, Kate Marijolovic, Julian Roberts-Grmela, Zachary Schermele, Alecia Taylor, Alex Walters, Megan Zahneis
Methodology
The Chronicle looked for bills introduced in the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions on state legislative websites. We searched for bills that would affect diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts identified in the model state legislation proposed last year by the Goldwater Institute and the Manhattan Institute. We supplemented those efforts by looking for articles about relevant legislation in local media outlets.
In some states, changes in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts at public colleges have come from outside the legislature. For example, in a measure that appears to target diversity statements, the University of North Carolina system’s Board of Governors voted in February 2023 to prohibit colleges from asking applicants or employees to state or agree with certain viewpoints in hiring or admissions, while the governor of Oklahoma issued an executive order banning DEI practices. We did not include measures like those; instead, we focused on state legislation.
Enrollment data represents only full-time students in the fall of 2022, and it comes from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System, known as Ipeds. Employee numbers also come from Ipeds and include only full-time workers. Percentages of nonwhite students and faculty members are calculated by taking the total population minus the white population. People who identified as two or more races, nonresidents, or unknown were removed from the calculations. Only data for degree-granting institutions in the United States that participate in the federal Title IV student-aid programs is included.