Commentary: How Colleges Extend the Reach of Anti-DEI Laws

‍Jackie Pedota, Liliana M. Garces and Eliza Morse Bentley Epstein are co-authors of forthcoming studies, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Trellis Foundation, examining how anti-DEI legislation reshapes institutional life and the production and transfer of knowledge in public universities. Pedota, an incoming assistant professor at University of Massachusetts Boston, serves as a fellow of the Alliance for Higher Education. Garces serves as vice president of research and public impact at the Alliance and is the Ken McIntyre Professor for Excellence in School Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin. Epstein is an independent scholar and core team organizer with the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas.

Across the country, colleges and universities continue to grapple with newly proposed or enacted laws and policies restricting diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. In fact, since 2023 more than 150 such bills have been introduced in states across the country.

Much of the public debate focuses on what these directives explicitly prohibit. But our research shows that some of the most far-reaching consequences are not written into these laws or policies at all. They are produced through the processes universities use to comply with them.

For the past two years, we have studied how institutions comply with anti-DEI laws in practice, focusing on the implementation of Texas’s Senate Bill 17 at the University of Texas at Austin. Drawing on nearly 100 interviews with administrators, faculty and student leaders, along with observations and document analysis, our study revealed a compliance process that extends the law’s reach beyond its text, restricting activities and programs that the law itself does not prohibit, like teaching, research and student organization activities.

Read the full opinion article here.

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