Diversity offices on college campuses will soon be illegal in Texas, as 30 new laws go into effect

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.

…

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.

…

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.

chocolateo,

Let’s give the state back to Mexico and let them sort it out

blazeknave,

Can we let them have their freedom so I can stop funneling my tax dollars to their autocratic christofascist fucking messes?

Seriously… you’re right. I’m a coastal elite douchebag. You were right all along. I get it now. By all means, please go your own way. Don’t let the door hit your electrical grid on the way out…

Vaginal_blood_fart,

Shit states gonna shit state.

Bakkoda,

They are a rough draft. It’s the sandbox for just how awful a government can treat it’s citizens before they revolt. So far it’s working really well. Except the final draft in 2024.

BigMacHole,

Small Government! Freedom!

BakedGoods,

What the fuck is a diversity office? Why is it so fucking important for Americans to categorize people into pointless groups and thus create otherness and violence?

atzanteol,

You think it’s the people in the diversity office creating “otherness and violence”?

msage,

The cruelty is the point

Anamnesis,

While I think this law is overall a bad thing, ending diversity statements is a good thing. They add unnecessary work to an already onerous application process, and mostly serve to just serve to exclude lower class applicants of any race who don’t know the right way to write a diversity statement. In practice they’re mostly a class signifier and should be abolished.

Drivebyhaiku,

Ah yes those poor dumb University hopefuls who don’t know how to use google because they are too impoverished to learn how to use a computer and have too much lead poisoning impacted impairments to learn to write a basic essay… To apply for University…

Did they get rid of Legacy admissions by any chance?

Anamnesis,

I mean, you can’t just Google how to write a diversity statement in a way that matches what a university hiring committee wants. It’s like googling how to write an email as a rich alumnus. It’s a deep culture that most people don’t have access to.

Drivebyhaiku,

Yes you can. You can actually specify which specific University you are applying to on a search and usually get fairly specific advice and monetarily or connection lacking perspective University students basically make a job and practice of learning that shit for obtaining scholarships and those who feel they want to give back make their stuff known. The ability to research well is selective but so is requiring excellent grades and tests.

Saying “This job requiring a cover letter disadvantages people because writing cover letters is hard” for a highly competitive job that requires a high level of aptitude in writing as a basic requirement for getting the job is kind of a joke. Meanwhile the fast tracks and leg ups for kids based strictly on who their parents are still in place and represent an actual nepotism problem that creates a privileged class that no manner of personal merit will allow someone to benefit from.

SeaJ,

Republicans love small government. /s

CaptainProton,

Asshats seem to do this in the death throes of failed ideas. Lose a case and double down with a pile of new laws that take a decade to untangle in the courts.

This is 100% a replay of racists’ loss on segregation, and it’s happening in both red and blue states on separate issues: as bigots in red stateslose on human rights for classes they dislike and classists in blue states lose the rich having the monopoly on force/self-defense.

chitak166,

Crazy how tuition is so expensive and they waste it on shit like this.

Glad I dropped out before wasting too much money.

crandlecan,

Yeah… you “dropped out”… Sure buddy, sure… 👍

chitak166,

Yep. One of the greatest decisions I ever made.

Always funny seeing my friends complain about student debt and people getting their jobs without degrees.

Sorry you got suckered into wasting money at a time when knowledge is more accessible than ever.

S_204,

I pity the life of the guy who’s bragging about dropping out of college. If that’s one of your greatest decisions, life must absolutely suck but you likely don’t even grasp why or how it would have been improved by university training.

I guess this is what they mean when they say ignorance is bliss.

chitak166,

I’m sorry you can’t accept that people have done better than you without going to college.

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

I dropped out too. It was in no way one of the greatest decisions I ever made. It lead to a series of shitty, dead-end jobs and I’m only lucky my wife has two masters degrees and can always support us. But I’m ashamed that she has to bear a much larger chunk of our expenses than I ever had to.

NobodyElse,

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?

knobbysideup,
@knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works avatar

That and I feel that forced diversity isn’t diversity at all.

Lmaydev,

It definitely is for those the system works against.

knobbysideup,
@knobbysideup@sh.itjust.works avatar

That’s not a race/disability problem. It is a wealth problem.

OutlierBlue,

Just like forcing children to eat vegetables isn’t really eating vegetables at all.

makeshiftreaper,

Ah yes, suddenly everyone cares about where money is going when discussing something they dislike.

The thing about diversity and inclusion is that there are a lot of systemic barriers that people don’t see until they go looking for them. People who live with disadvantages learn to adapt to them and frequently don’t vocalize them to avoid being a burden. Contrary to conservative narrative, these offices do more than promote affirmative action. These offices examine historical architecture to make them more accessible to the handicapped, proactively identify/resolve problems for university brands, provide funds and support to clubs, and help with employment opportunities for students.

Will the closure of these offices immediately create problems for campuses? Probably not. Will there be other issues that pop up that these departments exist to prevent? Almost certainly

NobodyElse,

Ah yes, any disagreement must come from the “other team” and hatred or ignorance. How insightful…

As a minority who should have seen benefit from such an office, and who is not conservative by any means, all I saw from these diversity offices in college was posters for social events and regular emails from a long string of parasitic Chief Diversity Officers, while our labs and classrooms were looking increasingly dilapidated.

Do you have any evidence to back up the claims that these offices actually do anything toward achieving the stated goals? Surely they’ve been around long enough to have measurable outcomes.

atzanteol,

How do you know that you saw no benefit?

FlyingSquid,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

When the “other team” is the one making it illegal…

Socsa,

It’s absolutely bonkers to me that people don’t believe there is intrinsic value to mechanical diversity. When I taught student engineering teams, the effects could not have been more obvious. Homogenous groups of “friends” would produce the most lazy, derivative and uncreative work, while it was always that last team of stragglers who had never spoken to each other who would consistently produce actual groundbreaking projects. Most of the time these were middle of the road students in terms of their grades as well.

Being forced outside of a comfort zone literally activates different parts of your brain. It forces you to approach problem solving and teamwork from first principles instead of conditioned hierarchy. Seeing this first hand has probably been one of the most formative experiences for me, and I will continue to preach this gospel wherever I go. Just add it to the long list of reasons Texas can suck my tits.

aodhsishaj,

This is literally how the United States started competing so well in STEM. Literally the only good aspect of the assimilation that came about during the industrial revolution.

…neh.gov/…/backstory-melting-pot-americans-assimi…

Texas_Hangover,

Is there something wrong with your tits?

Dran_Arcana,

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.

NotMyOldRedditName,

Six people who sit in an office 98% of the time doing things that should be done by a python script

That problem exists in nearly every office environment.

Meltrax, (edited )

Probably not, honestly, but I truly can’t think of a justification for making them illegal. How is outlawing diversity training and knowledge useful to anyone?

steveman_ha,

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.

_number8_,

deleted_by_moderator

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    dugmeup,

    deleted_by_moderator

    •
    Omegamanthethird,
    @Omegamanthethird@lemmy.world avatar

    I think that’s their point. They’re saying all the shitty red states should just fuck off and learn the hard way.

    As a resident of a shitty red state, I’d rather they didn’t.

    Anamnesis,

    Fuck that, finish the work reconstruction started.

    crandlecan,

    You lost, get over it 😚

    jaschen,

    Fun fact: the Baby Shark song is older than the confederacy. (1861-1865). Even 3 1/2 years was too long.

    FlyingSquid,
    @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

    Makes sense that a state that originally declared independence from Mexico because they wanted to keep up the institution of slavery also doesn’t want a diverse university population.

    Stern,
    @Stern@lemmy.world avatar

    Fun (in the loosest sense of the word) fact: The Oklahoma panhandle also exists because Texas wanted to keep slavery.

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