The Dismantling of DEI
Republican politicians in early 2023 launched an assault on colleges’ diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to recruit and retain faculty and students of color. While college administrators say their so-called DEI efforts are an effective strategy to repair decades of exclusionary policies and practices that repelled communities of color from their campuses, Republican leaders say the practices violate free speech, break antidiscrimination laws, and are a misuse of public money.
Track the latest DEI Legislation and its affect on college campuses
Legislators want to get rid of diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, end diversity trainings, banish diversity statements, and censor how professors talk about race, gender, and sexuality in mandatory courses.
We’ve documented actions taken on hundreds of college campuses to alter or eliminate jobs, offices, hiring practices, and programs amid pressure to end identity-conscious recruitment and retention of minority staff and students.
DEI EXPLAINED
Recent Stories
Defending a Profession
At a mass convening, DEI administrators described feelings of betrayal, fear, and courage.
Swift shifts
The president has aggressively targeted campus diversity initiatives. Many institutions have made changes.
Defending DEI
The lawsuit is higher education’s first major attempt to push back against a deluge of executive actions in the first weeks of the new administration.
A Renewed Push
A Sweeping Effort to Reshape Ohio’s Colleges Has Stalled for Years. Now It’s Back, and Even Broader.
Senate Bill 1 takes aim at what happens in the classroom, focusing on “controversial beliefs or policies” and seeking to encourage intellectual diversity.
Dismantling DEI
Board leaders said the action would force administrators to support all students “regardless of their identifying characteristics.”
Diversity Efforts
A vice president warned at the tense meeting that the incoming Congress will “use whatever tools they have” to eliminate identity-conscious diversity initiatives: “We may have to trim sails.”
'Impending Threats'
In the aftermath of a critical New York Times story, faculty leaders fear regents are considering cuts to one of the nation’s most unapologetically ambitious models.
Academic Freedom
Faculty members at the University of North Texas fear their teaching and research on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion will be curtailed by their own university’s interpretation of a state law — and, in one college, they say it already has.
Diversity Defense
Amid widening disparities and under political siege, advocates urge administrators to start collecting data to figure out which DEI strategies do and don’t work.
Anticipating attacks
The university’s top leader says it’s a concession to the tremendous pressure that colleges are under as lawmakers seek to ban DEI efforts.
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