Colleges Become a Target
On Friday, Florida’s governor signed a bill preventing public colleges from subjecting “any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe” a list of eight statements about race and identity.
The banned statements include:
- “an individual’s moral character or status as either privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by his or her race, color, sex, or national origin.”
- “an individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment to achieve diversity, equity, or inclusion.”
Florida’s new law, which has already spurred a lawsuit, is the latest in a wave of Republican-backed proposals targeting critical race theory and “divisive concepts” in education. Though the initial batch of anti-CRT bills last year mostly focused on K-12 schools, more of them are now aimed at public colleges, according to PEN America, a free-speech advocacy group.
Professors, students, and others have expressed fear that the measures will chill teaching and discussions about race.
Anti-CRT laws targeting colleges have already led to changes on some campuses. It could be a sign of what’s to come in other states.
Tennessee
Tennessee’s governor signed a bill this month targeting 16 different race and identity concepts. While proposals in other states have often focused on mandatory diversity training for students, Tennessee’s law also bars such training for faculty and staff members.
The law prevents public colleges from discriminating against employees who don’t support the stated concepts and from requiring employees to endorse “a specific ideology or political viewpoint” for hiring, tenure, or promotion.
A spokesperson for the University of Tennessee at Knoxville referred The Chronicle to a statement about the law from last month and didn’t respond to specific questions about the law’s effects. But a handful of UT’s diversity efforts seem to be affected.
All academic colleges and departments at UT had submitted detailed diversity plans in fall of 2020, following a campus reckoning over racial justice. In February 2021, the university’s administration drafted a strategic plan that, among other things, would have required annual training for employees on “creating welcoming climates.”
But earlier this year, The College Fix, a conservative website, published an article singling out aspects of the diversity plans — including that several UT colleges were considering adding competence in diversity and equity to their tenure and promotion expectations. In February, several conservative groups published a report that criticized the university’s social-justice “apparatus,” encouraging the state legislature to act.
This spring, Republican lawmakers heeded that call.
Newly released campus guidance on Tennessee’s “divisive concepts” law states that UT has “never imposed” a requirement to endorse a particular viewpoint for hiring or advancement. The action plans currently posted on UT’s website don’t reference diversity becoming part of tenure and promotion expectations; instead, they more generally describe goals to increase faculty diversity. The university’s finalized strategic plan doesn’t mention required training for employees.
All members of search committees at UT have been required to take a training called Strategies and Tactics for Recruiting to Improve Diversity and Excellence, or Stride, which aims to eliminate unconscious biases in faculty hiring. It’s not clear how the law will affect that requirement.
Oklahoma
Seven years ago, the University of Oklahoma created a mandatory orientation program for new students about diversity and inclusion. The training was part of the university’s response to a racist fraternity video that stoked national outrage. Many in higher ed saw OU’s work — led by Kathleen Wong(Lau), a renowned diversity expert — as a model for better diversity training.
Today, the orientation program lives on, but it’s not required anymore. Under a 2021 state law, public colleges in Oklahoma can’t require any kind of diversity education. The law also states: “Any orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex shall be prohibited.”
In an interview, Wong(Lau), who is now chief diversity officer at San Jose State University, said she was disappointed. The orientation program is research-based and discusses race and sex stereotypes, she said, but doesn’t apply those stereotypes to participants. “To get rid of them, you need to make people aware of them and talk about them,” she said.
A university spokesperson said in an email: “While the university can no longer require training for students due to [the law], OU still encourages students to participate.”
The law also altered a new diversity course that was to be mandatory for all OU students. The course had stemmed from demands made in early 2020 by student activists, who protested after several racist incidents took place on campus, according to reporting by The Frontier, a nonprofit outlet in Oklahoma. “Gateway to Belonging” was set to begin in fall of 2021 as a mandatory class on diverse perspectives and cultural awareness.
Now, students can choose between that class and two other options — one on “global perspectives and engagement” and another on “ethical leadership development,” according to the university.
The university had begun requiring an online diversity training for students, faculty, and staff in fall of 2020 — which had drawn criticism from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, or FIRE, for allegedly “requiring students and faculty to answer questions in a manner that expresses agreement with the university’s viewpoints on thorny and difficult issues.” OU’s website now states that people “have the opportunity” to take the online training.
Wong(Lau) said she hopes new students will still take advantage of the orientation program and other trainings. College, she said, is the ideal time for young people to learn how to engage in dialogue about tough topics and how to respectfully listen to peers who hold different views.
“What this training will do,” she said, “is open your eyes so that you will always be open to learning how other people are experiencing the world.”
Iowa
Faculty members at Iowa State University had just spent months revising a new diversity-course requirement for undergraduates when Iowa’s legislature passed a law banning mandatory training that promotes certain race-related concepts, in spring of 2021.
As my colleague Beth McMurtrie reported, a group of professors had been trying to update the curricular requirement’s language, which hadn’t been changed since the 1990s, and establish learning outcomes that students should satisfy.
But Iowa State officials believed that one of the proposed learning outcomes — “analyze systemic oppression and personal prejudice and their impact on marginalized communities and the broader U.S. society” — could violate the new state law. So last year, the administration and the faculty reached a compromise: Students will now only have to satisfy three of the four learning outcomes.
According to Iowa State’s guidance on the law, the university’s departments and offices should be careful about using words like “training,” “mandatory,” and “urging” to describe any programs. People should instead use “educational” and “opportunities” and “this program is open to all,” the guidance states.
The university’s guidelines, which have been criticized by some faculty members as overly broad, also direct professors to consider whether the race-related concepts they teach are “presented, examined, and studied in a way” that offers “the opportunity for students to advance and freely express alternative viewpoints.”
A spokesperson for Iowa State said that the university isn’t aware of any course material that was altered due to the law.
The University of Iowa, though, has adopted a different interpretation of the law. Iowa’s faculty instituted a diversity course as a graduation requirement five years ago, thanks to student advocacy. According to the university, the new state law only applies to mandatory training, not to the curriculum, so the diversity course requirement is unaffected.
