When Texas college students return to their campuses after the winter break, they’ll discover the lights are still off in their campuses’ diversity offices.
That’s because a new law that outlaws such work at the state’s higher education institutions goes into effect, Jan. 1.
Another 29 laws also will go into effect in the new year that aim to change the economy, tax codes and the criminal justice system.
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Dissolving diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at public universities: Senate Bill 17 requires public universities to end so-called diversity, equity and inclusion work. Universities will also be unable to offer training on diversity and inclusion for its faculty and staff, or require diversity statements in hiring processes. Universities must also confirm to the Legislature between legislative sessions that they are in full compliance.
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The law’s restrictions do not apply to class instruction, materials needed for federal grant applications or student organizations on campuses, but multiple university officials have said the law has made hiring new faculty more difficult.
An unpopular opinion I’m sure (for reasons), but do these offices actually achieve anything besides bloating up the already obese administration that sucks money away from the academic side of the university?
DEI exercises in other kids of businesses often seem like performative BS, if we’re being honest – IMHO, this is a really legitimate and simple question. Especially considering the impact bloated admin “costs” (salaries, etc) have on students & society (e.g. student loan debt).
Not reading all the way down, but just wanted to say I think it sucks that you got downvoted for this comment. You’ve got one less from me, anyways.
But also yeah, they do try and do things that really make a difference. Among other things, they make cross-campus connections to develop initiatives aimed at supporting students from under- represented groups – not just race or ethnicity, but also things like low-income, first generation in your family to attend, etc.
Things like this can strongly correlate with more distractions, difficulties, and obstacles in students’ lives, compared to observations of students from so-called “privileged” backgrounds. Not providing anything that those students from other backgrounds don’t have access to – quite the opposite actually.
I work at a large public university. The sad answer is every admin department is incredibly inefficient and DEI is no different. Six people who sit in an office 98% of the time doing things that should be done by a python script, 1% emailing the entire uni mandatory quizzes like “a student in your class called another student the N word, was that bad?” And the final 1% of the time doing things that actually matter.
That problem exists in nearly every office environment.
That and I feel that forced diversity isn’t diversity at all.
Just like forcing children to eat vegetables isn’t really eating vegetables at all.
It definitely is for those the system works against.
That’s not a race/disability problem. It is a wealth problem.