Colleges Risk Talent Loss With Pushback on Diversity Initiatives

Public colleges and universities are eliminating hundreds of jobs tied to boosting diversity, equity, and inclusion in response to state efforts to scale back DEI, a move that diversity supporters say is overkill that ultimately will harm the institutions.

Utah is the latest state to have a new law go into effect barring DEI offices and the use of specific characteristics like race in admissions and employment decisions at its 16 public universities and technical colleges.

The Utah System of Higher Education’s guidance on navigating the law, which took effect July 1, doesn’t recommend closing cultural centers that support historically marginalized students. Yet at least two institutions announced plans to do so.

The response mirrors actions taken by colleges in Florida, North Dakota, and Texas, which enacted their own DEI bans last year. All offer a view of the potential consequences of pushback against DEI initiatives, attorneys and diversity advocates told Bloomberg Law.

They argue that the reversal of movements to increase diversity in higher education has broad implications: in addition to eliminating jobs for DEI professionals, institutions that cut back such programs risk hampering efforts to hire and retain diverse faculty and staff and undermining employee morale and freedom of expression

Conservative efforts to curtail initiatives to recruit and retain underrepresented students and staff gained momentum following the US Supreme Court’s ruling last year outlawing the use of race in college admissions.

The decision sparked numerous legal challenges to diversity initiatives. Along with Utah, lawmakers in Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, and Kansas have approved legislation this year alone to restrict some or all diversity efforts in higher education. To date, 12 states have enacted such measures.

Costs of Compliance

The uneven response to the new laws sparked concerns among legal observers and employee groups that institutions have interpreted them too broadly.

“There are different laws and standards at issue, so every group has to assess their programs based on where they find themselves,” said Derick Dailey, an attorney with Crowell & Moring LLP.

Some colleges have terminated, reassigned, or changed the roles of their DEI staff. Others simply tweaked job titles by omitting mentions of “diversity” and “equity” and replacing them with terms like “belonging,” “access,” “community engagement,” and “opportunity.”

The University of Florida this year axed 13 full-time staff members and 15 faculty members who were specifically tasked with carrying out DEI duties.

The University of Texas System terminated more than 300 full- and part-time workers and disbanded 21 DEI offices across the state after the law took effect in January, university officials recently told lawmakers.

UT Austin’s faculty also accused their administration of overreacting to the anti-DEI law by closing identity-based cultural centers that aimed to attract and provide a safe space for minority students and staff.

A UT Austin spokesperson didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Opponents of DEI programs maintain that they impose beliefs or values that stifle free speech and promote ideological viewpoints that prioritize choosing applicants based on race, sex, or other protected characteristics rather than individual merit.

“These initiatives, presented as promoting fairness, have instead fostered division and racial bias within our institutions and culture—which is not conducive to serving taxpayers well,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) said in a June statement announcing the introduction of a Republican bill to eliminate DEI policies from federal agencies and contracts.

But Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, said UT Austin’s response to the state’s law underscores its broader impact.

Compliance has meant medical schools in the state this year have lost over $30 million in federal grant opportunities tied to training women and racial minority students, he said.

Chilling Effect

The DEI backlash has also left practitioners reevaluating their career options.

Some have already relocated to other states, said Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education.

“It’s taking a personal toll, particularly on those at the senior level,” she said. “Their careers are being derailed.”

Karma Chávez, a Mexican American and Latino/Studies professor at UT Austin, said at least two applicants for faculty positions recently turned down offers because they believed the Texas law would interfere with their research areas.

“I’ve been in higher ed for 25 years, and this is the lowest morale I’ve ever experienced on a university campus,” she said. “I can’t tell you the number of letters of recommendation I wrote, particularly for faculty of color this year who are trying to get out of Texas because they don’t feel safe or think they can do their work here.”

Ethan W. Blevins, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, agreed that some legislators have taken a “zealous approach” in passing restrictive measures that undermine freedom of thought, including Florida’s 2022 “Stop WOKE Act” championed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

“I can see why” some restrictions “would be demoralizing or have a sort of chilling effect” on employee morale and free speech, he said.

Diversity Statements

But Blevins said he opposes mandatory diversity statements, which require job and promotion candidates to outline their potential contributions to campus diversity efforts.

Critics say such mandates unlawfully compel speech and promote liberal ideology and racial bias against White applicants.

“It’s become this political litmus test” and a “filtering device” that universities use “to short out ideological viewpoints they have on issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion or minority representation,” Blevins said.

The statements remain one DEI area colleges and universities appear willing and able to scale back without widespread backlash from diversity proponents. Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently scrapped theirs despite no DEI legislation in that state.

William Jacobson, a Cornell Law School professor and founder of the Equal Protection Project, said public schools that require such statements violate the First Amendment.

“Where multiple sides and viewpoints are presented, and the university adopted a position on it, you’re chilling speech,” he said.

That idea hasn’t yet been tested in court.

In one of the first challenges to a diversity statement policy, a federal judge ruled in January that a University of California, Santa Cruz professor lacked standing to sue because he neither applied for a new position nor showed he was “ready and able” to do so.

Several California community college professors also filed a similar suit that’s been repeatedly delayed for various reasons.

Diversity statements alone cannot guarantee equity in the hiring process and instead are “one tool used to address whether an individual has the background and experiences that would allow them to be effective in a diverse campus community,” Granberry Russell said.

Universities instead can ensure there’s equity by establishing a structured search process that evaluates candidates based on various factors, including job expectations and their core values, she said.