The following commentary is published on Thursdays as part of TPPF’s subscriber-only newsletter The Post. If you would like to subscribe to The Post, click here.
On Tuesday, the Senate Committee on Education will have a hearing to monitor the implementation of the new ban on DEI programs at public universities in Texas. It’s not uncommon to have hearings during the interim session, but this one seems particularly urgent.
After passing the bill, SB 17, last session, multiple reports surfaced, including secretly taped conversations, suggesting university officials were not taking the ban seriously. If they responded at all, many were simply changing the names of the offices but keeping the programs in place.
Turns out Sen. Brandon Creighton, the author of the bill and chairman of the education committee, was very serious and sent a blistering letter to schools reminding them that not only was simply renaming offices unacceptable but that noncompliance could result in freezing funding and other legal ramifications. Representatives from North Texas, Texas Woman’s University, Texas A&M, UT, Houston, and Texas Tech will appear before the committee next week to show how they are taking steps to follow the law.
You can run a straight line from DEI programs to the anti-Israel protests and illegal encampments popping up at universities across the country. The protesters may not know which river or which sea, much less the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict that began long before October 7, but they recognize the “oppressor and the oppressed” lens through which DEI forces everyone. And the faculty are all too eager to activate the generation they’ve brainwashed into being unwitting soldiers for their neo-Marxist causes.
Good thing Texans aren’t buying it. A new survey conducted for TPPF by Mike Baselice shows Texans still heavily back the ban. More than two-thirds of Texans say all students should be treated the same at Texas universities, without special programs for Black, Hispanic and Gay students. Just 25% say Texas universities should create special programs for Black, Hispanic and Gay students to help them fit in and succeed in college.
The hearing will surely serve to hold administrators’ feet to the fire and let lawmakers know if more needs to be done.