CV NEWS FEED // Multiple universities in the University of Texas system have recently announced the firing of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) staff, in order to comply with state law.
The Austin American-Statesman confirmed Friday that the University of Texas at Austin (UT) laid off a total of 66 DEI administrators at the school and axed the Multicultural Engagement Center, which had housed six DEI-related programs.
News of the layoffs first broke early this month. On April 2, the Statesman reported that “a person with knowledge of the terminations said at least 60 people have lost their jobs, 40 of them in the Division of Campus and Community Engagement [DCCE] alone.”
“UT is also closing the [DCCE],” the Statesman’s April 2 report added.
According to its website, the DCCE describes itself as “a national model for integrating access and belonging into the University’s core mission.”
UT President Jay Hartzell told the Statesman that Texas’ anti-DEI law, SB 17, “has changed the scope of some programs on campus, making them broader and creating duplication with long-standing existing programs supporting students, faculty, and staff.”
“Following those reviews, we have concluded that additional measures are necessary to reduce overlaps, streamline student-facing portfolios, and optimize and redirect resources into our fundamental activities of teaching and research,” he said in justifying the layoffs.
Conservative scholar and prominent DEI critic Christopher Rufo praised UT’s decision.
“The ‘pink slip revolution’ has begun,” he wrote on X (formerly Twitter) Friday.
In addition, The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) also announced it will part ways with its DEI-related staff.
In a message dated last Tuesday, UTD President Dr. Richard C. Benson stated that the university’s actions have “ensured” it is “fully compliant with SB 17,” ever since the legislation went into effect on the first day of this year.
“Since then, we have continued to evaluate our SB 17 response and how to realign many of the programs impacted by the legislation,” Benson added.
“As a result, effective April 30, 2024, the Office of Campus Resources and Support (OCRS) and approximately 20 associated jobs will be eliminated,” the university president wrote:
A limited number of functions will be moved to other administrative units to ensure continuity of services to our students, faculty and staff.
…
Employees affected by the elimination of these positions have been notified, and the Office of Human Resources is working to support them. Student workers will retain their jobs through the end of the semester, and we will help them find other options for the future.
“I know that this decision will not be welcomed by many in our campus community,” Benson acknowledged.
Also in his statement, Benson noted that SB 17 “prohibits public universities from maintaining [DEI] offices and from conducting or supporting DEI activities, trainings and programs.”
>> RELATED: TX LAWMAKER LAUNCHES EFFORT TO MAKE SURE UNIVERSITIES FOLLOW STATE’S ANTI-DEI LAW <<
Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 17 into law last June. The legislation was sponsored by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-TX.
Immediately after Abbottt signed it, Creighton’s office described SB 17 as “the most significant ban on [DEI] in higher education in the nation.”
Texas is not the only state where large universities are axing DEI programs and administrators in compliance with recently-enacted state laws.
In March, CatholicVote reported that “the University of Florida (UF) fired all of its [DEI] employees” and “reallocated millions of dollars in spending previously earmarked for DEI.”
“The moves were in accordance with a law that Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed last year to strip DEI funding from the state’s public universities, of which UF is by far the largest,” CatholicVote then described.
At the time, Rufo called UF’s move a “counter-revolution.”
>> ‘COUNTER-REVOLUTION’ AS UF FIRES DEI STAFF, REALLOCATES FUNDING <<
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