UT System Suspends Any New Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Policies on All 13 Campuses

The University of Texas System Board of Regents has suspended any new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, or DEI, policies on all 13 of its campuses. Three of them are in North Texas: UT Dallas, UT Arlington, and UT Southwestern.

This announcement appeared two weeks after Gov. Greg Abbott’s office sent a letter to government agencies and public universities. warning them to stop using DEI initiators in their hiring, claiming it violates state and federal discrimination laws. Several groups spoke out against the memorandum.

Kevin Eltif, Chairman of the Board, UT System who’s from Tyler, said he’s asked all campuses to submit a report to the board on current policy.

At the start of Wednesday’s meeting of Regents, he said, “To be clear, we welcome, celebrate, and strive for diversity on our campuses among our students and faculty.”

He then stated, “I also think it’s fair to say that recently some of the DEI’s efforts have deviated from the original intent and are now imposing demands and actions that rightfully raise concerns among our politicians about these efforts across campuses across the state.”

Eltife said it plans to work with lawmakers in every possible way and will implement any new policies that are introduced.

The board of trustees did not provide any details or examples of which policies were misused.

“I had a lot of questions because it’s very difficult to answer a short statement,” said Jandel Crutchfield, assistant professor of social work and director of DEI at the University of Texas at Arlington School of Social Work.

Jandel said the idea that DEI could be misused doesn’t align with the study she studied and wants to learn more about policies that have been misused.

“I think it’s very important to make a distinction between the policy itself and the individuals who abuse the policy, whatever their motives, and so I hope this stays clean and clear. Because any policy can be abused by anyone, and so perhaps the goal could be to address bad actors rather than getting rid of any DEI policies,” Crutchfield said.

The UT system said it would not take any action until it was received from the legislature.

Across the country, diversity, fairness and inclusiveness have been used to expand the reach of people in the workplace and at universities.

Crutchfield said that having people from different walks of life brings additional benefits in the form of ideas and points of view.

“The goal of inclusion is for everyone to have a seat at the table, and so she asks us to look around the table and say, ‘Who was missing?’,” Crutchfield explained.

“People who are invited to the table receive honors. They have earned any right to be in the room, they just don’t go to all the places they can be often.”

She said that historically, certain groups, including people of color, people of different religions, ethnic groups, languages, people with disabilities, women, LGBTQ people, and veterans, were left out.

“If we believe in DEI principles, we want to have a discussion and we want all people to be represented at the table and so I hope these discussions are conducted in good faith and aim to improve the student experience,” Crutchfield said of all the dialogue around DEI.

A spokesman for UT System said they had no other comments other than Eltife’s statement. There is also no timetable at this time for when the council will review each campus’s DEI policy.

The full Eltife statement is below:

“The topic of DEI’s work on college campuses has received a lot of national attention here in Texas as well. To be clear, we welcome, welcome and strive for diversity on our campuses among our students and faculty.

I also think it’s fair to say that some of the DEI’s efforts have recently veered from their original intent and are now imposing demands and actions that have rightfully raised our politicians’ concerns about these efforts on campuses across our state. We welcome our elected officials to the legislature who are studying DEI policy in the Texas higher education system. We will work with them in every possible way and will certainly implement any new policies that the Legislative Assembly introduces.

Given the clear legislative focus, we have suspended any new DEI policies on our campuses and have requested a report on current policies on all of our campuses. This will give our board of directors the opportunity to become familiar with the various policies across the system. We will await any action from the Legislature to be implemented by the UT system in due course and, if necessary, the board may consider a uniform DEI policy for the entire UT system.“

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