A flashpoint and then a chaotic news cycle
A flashpoint in the nascent Republican push to dismantle colleges’ diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts came sooner than we had anticipated. It happened even before the imposition of Texas’ new law banning DEI offices, programs, and training at public colleges, as well as the use of diversity statements and preferential hiring. Texas A&M administrators scrambled last month to undo the hiring of Kathleen McElroy, a lauded educator at the University of Texas at Austin, former New York Times editor, and Black woman who’s openly advocated for newsrooms that reflect the communities they cover.
The botched hiring — detailed in public statements, a series of text messages, and astute reporting by Kate McGee of The Texas Tribune — resulted in M. Katherine Banks’s abrupt resignation as president of Texas A&M’s flagship campus. Each revelation in the drip-drip-drip news cycle shocked even some veteran reporters and editors here at The Chronicle.
Our newsroom has taken a (somewhat torturous) wait-and-see approach to how the seven sweeping, vague, and sometimes-conflicting anti-DEI laws that were passed in five states will be applied by public-college administrators this fall. (At least 40 bills have so far been introduced across the nation, according to our tracker.)
Below, I replay the three wildest moments in the Texas A&M fiasco.
A signing ceremony and then a change of heart
Texas A&M wanted to build up its journalism program, and in McElroy, administrators thought they had found the perfect person to lead the effort. On June 13, Texas A&M officials placed silver and maroon balloons around a table, invited the press, and then posed for pictures at a signing ceremony with McElroy, an alum and respected journalist who was being hired to build a 21st-century journalism program on the campus.
The job offer had only to be approved by the A&M system’s Board of Regents, administrators told the local media, seemingly a formality since boards rarely meddle in administrators’ hiring decisions.
But then drama ensued.
A shocking comparison and then a candid text exchange
Colleges have for decades been under attack for their inability to diversify their faculty and administrative ranks.
With Republican state officials banning diversity statements, racial quotas, and other explicit efforts to hire more people of color, do you ever wonder what public-college administrators say to one another nowadays when they’re considering whether to hire a so-called diverse candidate?
Enter Texas A&M.
After the hiring process had soured, McElroy said she asked José Luis Bermúdez, who was interim dean of the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, what had gone wrong. He reportedly said to her, “You’re a Black woman who was at The New York Times and, to these folks, that’s like working for Pravda.”
Then, the university, as part of its $1-million settlement with McElroy, released a bombshell text exchange between Bermúdez and then-President Banks.
After concerns were raised at a Board of Regents meeting about whether McElroy’s hiring would comply with Texas’ anti-DEI law, Banks offered Bermúdez a bonus (complete with a smiley-face emoji) if he could persuade the new hire to accept a watered-down contract. Within weeks, McElroy had backed out of the negotiations.
“I think we dodged a bullet,” Banks texted Bermúdez after it became clear that McElroy had told The Texas Tribune how her hiring had unraveled. “She is a [sic] awful person to go to the press before us.”
“Thanks,” Bermúdez said in response. “A terrible journalist too. Completely self-serving.”
The entire exchange is worth reading.
Heads roll
Since the passage of their states’ anti-DEI laws, Floridians and Texans have described to us widespread fear and confusion on public-college campuses. Whose jobs will administrators get rid of? What programs will be axed? How will students be affected?
McElroy described her botched hiring as “DEI hysteria.”
As the public got a peek at how Texas A&M administrators had behaved, heads began to roll.
On July 17, Bermúdez announced that he’d step down from his role as dean. (He remains as a professor in the university’s philosophy department.)
“I feel in the light of controversy surrounding recent communications with Dr. Kathleen McElroy that this is the best thing that I can do to preserve the great things that we have achieved over the last year in creating the College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M,” Bermúdez said in a statement. “My continuation in this role would be a needless distraction as you all continue the work that we have begun.”
Shocking enough.
But then, less than a week later, Banks resigned, too.
“The recent challenges regarding Dr. [Kathleen] McElroy have made it clear to me that I must retire immediately,” Banks said in her resignation letter. “The negative press is a distraction from the wonderful work being done here.”
The media has struggled to define what colleges’ DEI efforts are, how those efforts are deployed, and if those efforts are, in fact, effective. Texas will be a state to watch.
