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 in 2023 by the Goldwater and the Manhattan Institutes. In 2025 The Chronicle started tracking bills that would prohibit colleges from requiring classes to graduate that promote concepts such as systemic racism, reparations, and racial or gender diversity, or from offering student-orientation programs with such content. For more coverage, read the articles in our Dismantling of DEI package.
Updated on May 16, 2025, with new information on Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
We are tracking
134 bills in
29 states and the U.S. Congress. Since 2023,
134
have been
introduced.
26
have final
legislative approval.
85
have been tabled,
failed to pass, or been 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 Daarel Burnette at daarel.burnette@chronicle.com.
Contributors: Adrienne Lu, Jacquelyn Elias, Audrey Williams June, Amelia Benavides-Colón, J. Brian Charles, Sonel Cutler, Christa Dutton, Amanda Friedman, Alissa Gary, Erin Gretzinger, Emma Hall, Maggie Hicks, Helen Huiskes, Forest Hunt, Maddie Khaw, Katherine Mangan, Kate Marijolovic, Julian Roberts-Grmela, Zachary Schermele, Jasper Smith, Maya Stahl, Alecia Taylor, Alex Walters, Megan Zahneis
Methodology
The Chronicle looked for bills introduced in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 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 in 2023 by the Goldwater Institute and the Manhattan Institute. In 2025, we also started tracking bills, based on Goldwater Institute’s model legislation, that would prohibit colleges from requiring classes to graduate that promote concepts such as systemic racism, reparations, and racial or gender diversity, or from offering student-orientation programs with such content. 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 2023, 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.
