The University of Texas at Austin announced on Tuesday that it is shutting down its diversity, equity, and inclusion division, sending DEI deans back to full-time teaching and eliminating some DEI positions altogether.
Programs and activities within the Division of Campus and Community Engagement (DCCE) will be discontinued as a result of the passage of Senate Bill 17, the school updated in a statement.
Passed in April 2023, the legislation requires state universities to close their DEI offices. It also bans mandatory diversity training and restricts companies from asking job candidates to pledge their commitment to diversity as a condition of employment.
“Additionally, funding used to support DEI across campus prior to SB17’s effective date will be redeployed to support teaching and research,” the statement added. “As part of this reallocation, associate or assistant deans who were formerly focused on DEI will return to their full-time faculty positions. The positions that provided support for those associate and assistant deans and a small number of staff roles across campus that were formerly focused on DEI will no longer be funded.”
Texas is one of a handful of Republican-dominated states, such as Florida, that have enacted laws to reduce or eliminate funding to academic DEI departments. The college’s collapsing its DEI operation comes amid finance professor Richard Lowery’s suing the school. Lowery accused the school of retaliating against him for publicly opposing DEI. He had made many objections to DEI and suggested that administrators exploit their positions for their children’s admission.
Several university administrators — and the university president, Jay Hartzell — responded with a “campaign to silence” the professor, which included threatening his job, salary, professional affiliations, and research opportunities, Lowery alleged in the lawsuit.
Lowery first came under scrutiny after he called out UT Austin’s expansive DEI bureaucracy, which costs $13 million annually in salaries alone.
The UT Austin “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan” requires that “all members of faculty search committees must participate in diverse hiring training” and invests $3 million over four years to support “recruitment and hiring of faculty contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Lowery and Hartzell had sparred in the past on the design and implementation of the university’s DEI policies. In an October 2021 faculty meeting, Lowery questioned Hartzell about the university’s DEI-hiring protocol, the meaning of “inclusive,” and the definition of “diversity skills,” our Abigail Anthony reported. Hartzell allegedly laughed and offered vague answers.
Following the statement announcing the closing of its DEI division, UT laid off at least 60 staff members who previously worked in related roles, three people with knowledge of the terminations told the Austin American-Statesman.
“Staff members whose positions are being eliminated will have the opportunity to apply and be considered for existing open positions at the University, and resources will be made available to support them,” the UT statement said.