By Kate McGee and Ikram Mohamed | Aaliyah Barlow needed to raise $20,000 by the end of the month.As president of the University of Texas at Austin’s Black Student Alliance, a scholar group, the rookie is in charge of obtaining funding for three hundred of her peers to enter an annual event for Black scholar leaders within the Big 12 Athletic Conference. She has been asking various colleges and departments at the school to sponsor their go for months, as they’ve always done before.
But this year, it’s been insects.
She claimed that President Jay Hartzell’s office, which is typically their biggest supporter, didn’t respond to emails. Neither did additional generally supportive departments. At least one more office vehemently rejected me.
She was told it was because of Senate Bill 17, the new state law that bans diversity, equity and inclusion agencies, courses and training in Texas open institutions.
According to Barlow, she and her fellow classmates have raised about $6,000 as of Friday, which will pay for the majority of the students’ initial costs. Instead of renting a vehicle, they then plan to travel the 14- afternoon trip. Or they’ll arrange to meet with another institution so they can get their vehicle to the event.
“It’s been really annoying, especially since we’ve been getting cash from these sites every single time”, Barlow said. We’re merely a scholar business, but I assumed we’d be alright. But that’s not the case, regrettably”.
On college campuses across the condition, things like Barlow’s are happening. At UT- Austin in special, feelings have been fraught with kids and advocates saying the school is going above and beyond what’s required by the state’s La restrictions.
A favorite cultural center that was home to a number of scholar organizations sponsored by the university has been closed since the law became law at the start of this year, and there is no longer a scholarship program for illegal students. This month, the undergraduate school canceled a lesson on finding coaches in higher education through the lens of the LGBTQ student practice after school attorneys argued it could be construed as richness instruction. Some students claim that university officials have reacted to their promises, frequently with little justification, after promising that some programs would not be harmed by the ban.
“I don’t think people even understood for real what it was until January 1, when they came back and they noticed the [Division of Diversity and Student Engagement] is not here anymore. They noticed that this room’s walls had been ripped off the Multicultural Engagement Center letters, according to Barlow. “It wasn’t taken seriously because I don’t think people really understood how severe it was until it was already in effect and it was too late”.
Law opponents claim that the ban’s language is unclear, and that lawyers for universities are advising their clients to play safe with their interpretation of it. They believe the tendency is to overcorrect, which is ultimately harming students and faculty.
Antonio Ingram II, a lawyer with the Legal Defense Fund, a Washington, D.C.-based legal organization that focuses on racial justice, said, “It’s becoming a tool to usher in a colorblind university system in a way that is evasive of the history of race discrimination, evasive of state-sanctioned exclusion, not to mention attacks on the queer community.”
UT-Austin officials have provided little information to students and faculty who have demanded more transparency about how they are interpreting the law. They did not respond to inquiries for interviews or a list of written inquiries.
Amid that silence, students are scrambling to fill the financial gaps and continue traditions the university used to support.
DEI ban in Texas
Early last year, conservative think tanks started to home in on DEI offices, accusing them of indoctrinating students with left-wing ideology and forcing universities to hire people based on how much they support diversity efforts rather than on merit and achievement. Legislation that targets these offices has been approved by Republican lawmakers, who now have them all across the nation. Texas became the second state to ban DEI offices, programs and training at public universities, following Florida.
State Senator Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, the ban’s author, said on the Senate floor last year, “DEI programs have been shown to be exclusive, they have been shown to be ineffective, and they have shown to be politically charged.” “Many of these programs have been weaponized to compel speech instead of protecting free speech”.
DEI offices have become more prevalent at universities over the past few years. They are typically charged with boosting faculty diversity and helping students from all backgrounds succeed.
To help students from underrepresented groups feel welcome and find a community on their campuses, these offices frequently coordinate mentorships, tutoring, and support programs. They also provide spaces for a wide range of student groups to gather, from students of color and LGBTQ students to students with disabilities and veterans. These offices also aid departments in casting a wide net when hiring candidates and prevent universities from breaking federal discrimination laws.
Students gather at the University of Texas at Austin’s South Mall on Feb. 22, 2024.(Photo Credit: The Texas Tribune/ Maria Crane)
Faculty and students have argued that banning universities’ DEI efforts would make it harder to recruit and retain top faculty and could lead some students to feel unwelcome and unsafe on campus. They assert that it reverses years of progress made to ensure that everyone, especially underrepresented students or those who were previously barred from entering, can succeed in school.
DEI ban in Texas states that public colleges and universities cannot create diversity offices, hire employees to conduct DEI work, or require any DEI training as a condition for being hired by or admitted to the university. All hiring practices must be “color-blind and sex-neutral,” the law says.
The law also lists some areas that it should not affect, including course instruction, faculty research, student organizations, guest speakers, data collection or admissions. It specifies that it does not apply to any “policy, practice, procedure, program, or activity designed and implemented without regard to race, sex, color, or ethnicity” to improve student academic performance or postgraduate outcomes.
In preparation for the law’s implementation, UT- Austin administrators shared with students and employees guidance from the University of Texas System, which oversees the school, about what is permitted under the ban. For instance, system guidance states that while student organizations are exempt from prohibitions, some of those organizations could dissolve based on the institution’s support.
“As with all new laws, I fully expect that there will be divided opinions on our campus about both the law itself and its eventual impacts on our University”, Hartzell wrote in a December letter to the campus community. However, it is the law, and we will follow it with compassion and respect for all of our neighbors.
(Photo Credit: The Texas Tribune/ Maria Crane)
“What they said didn’t actually happen,” they said.
The DEI ban’s exclusions led students like Guadalupe — a UT- Austin junior who is undocumented and asked to be identified only by her middle name out of fear of making her immigration status public — to believe that some of the programs she relied on throughout her time at the university would not be affected.
She made reference to the Monarch Program, which offered scholarships and support to students from undocumented or re-entry-tied backgrounds. It was founded in 2016 by a UT- Austin graduate student, but the university took it over, hiring its first full-time employee in 2021 and funneling university funding for the first time just last year.
A few weeks into her freshman year, Guadalupe stumbled into the program shortly after her laptop lost power three years ago. She was able to borrow a laptop through Monarch’s technology lending library until she saved enough money to buy a new one. Since then, she has worked with the program to support other students who want to stay in school and graduate.
But last month, UT-Austin eliminated the program without a public explanation. Internal documents from UT-Austin, per The Dallas Morning News, reveal that the program allegedly violated the state’s DEI ban and federal law.
Guadalupe said she was surprised UT-Austin ended the program, especially because university officials gave students reassurances last fall that SB 17 would not affect it. She’s also angry that the university did n’t give the program a chance to adjust to the new law.
“All these different programs were being]told],’ This is how your program does not comply with SB 17, this is what you need to change,'” she said. And it was not a conversation that was had about Monarch, to be honest.
Students also argue SB 17 should not apply to the Monarch Program since it did not implement any race or gender- based programming.
According to Guadalupe, “undocumented people come from a lot of different backgrounds.” “You can’t just point at undocumented folks and be like,’ oh, this is specifically like for the Latino community or the … Asian community,’ because it’s a very diverse group”.
A group of university department chairs wrote to UT administrators in a letter late in January asking for more details about the decision to end the Monarch Program.
“We recognize the immense challenges that SB 17 has created for your offices, but we hope that the process of compliance will not result in throwing out too many babies with the proverbial bath water”, the professors wrote.
They weren’t given a response.
Since Monarch was canceled, a student- run organization called Rooted, which also provides support for undocumented students, has taken over some of the services that the program used to provide.
On February 20, 2024, Victoria Uriostegui addresses students in the University of Texas at Austin’s Student Services Building. The wall behind them reads, “You belong here”.(Photo Credit: The Texas Tribune/ Maria Crane)
Watching the university eliminate Monarch without warning or explanation, according to Victoria Uriostegui, a junior at UT-Austin and a Rooted member, was exactly the kind of repercussions she warned lawmakers about when she testified against SB 17 at the Texas Capitol last year.
“What they said wouldn’t happen, happened”, she said. “Programs that weren’t meant to be impacted are impacted,” he said. And I think that’s just what makes it more infuriating that many students continually testified about these chilling effects. We are now observing their arrival.
One less safe space
Aneesha Tadikonda felt viewed in the university’s Multicultural Engagement Center.
Home to six student groups — Afrikan American Affairs, the Asian Desi Pacific Islander American Collective, the Latinx Community Affairs, the Native American and Indigenous Collective, Queer and Trans Black Indigenous People of Color Agency, and Students for Equity and Diversity — the center served as a meeting place for students of various underrepresented backgrounds and identities.
As she navigated the difficult first year of college, it was a place where she felt at ease asking for assistance. Staffers there knew she wanted to go to medical school and would send her free study guides for the exam required to apply and discount codes for study materials. Through book clubs and movie screenings, she made friends. But she especially loved the opportunity to network with other Asian American students and leaders on and off campus.
Tadikonda said, “I highly depended on the center to help me find a group of people with the same objectives as me.” “Outside of class, that’s very difficult to find, especially as someone who’s really involved with activism and their identity”.
Tadikonda’s students were horrified to learn that the center had been abruptly shut down as a result of the state’s DEI ban. The university did n’t send out any formal communication to students regarding the center’s closure.
When students returned to campus from their winter break, the space was still available for students to work in, but the staff was gone and the name of the center was taken away. Since the ban does not apply to student organizations, the culturally specific groups once housed within the center were allowed to continue operating, but only if they disaffiliated from the university and stopped receiving financial support from the school.
Students claimed that the MEC didn’t have the opportunity to make changes in compliance with SB 17 like they did with the Monarch Program. The center’s staff was given notice of the center’s closure about 10 days before the ban went into effect, students said.
Students are requesting that the university re-open the center in a manner that is in line with SB 17 and that it do so. They feel that shutting down the center went beyond the requirements of the law and pointed out that other Texas universities, like the University of Texas at San Antonio and the University of North Texas, kept their versions of the center open.
“I believe a large portion of it comes from our proximity to the Capitol. I think donors are a large part of it. However, I would completely agree that it is over-compliance, according to Kelly Solis, a senior and co-director of Latinx Community Affairs at UT-Austin.”
Kelly Solis, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the Latinx Community Affairs organization, at the former Multicultural Engagement Center on Feb. 20, 2024.(Photo Credit: The Texas Tribune / Maria Crane)
The MEC was first established in 1988 by students who felt the university lacked adequate support for Black and Hispanic students. Ten years later, the university’s Office of Student Affairs absorbed the center and gave it two full-time staff members.
Students are now tasked with preserving programs that were previously funded by universities and have been essential to their college experience as a result of the MEC’s abrupt closure.
That includes one of the most anticipated events that the six student groups within the MEC helped organize each year: cultural graduation ceremonies, which are smaller celebrations hosted for Black, Hispanic and LGBTQ students, among others.
When you travel to UT, perhaps as a first-generation student or as an immigrant child, and experience a first-hand absence from home, Tadikonda said,” It’s such a big accomplishment.” “It breaks my heart that now we have to work 100 times harder just to give people what they deserve, to give them the recognition that they might not get in a university-wide graduation”.
According to the organizers, these ceremonies highlight themes that are central to the groups they represent and aren’t always associated with university-wide graduations, such as family. For instance, families are invited to participate in GraduAsian, the ceremony that commemorates the achievements of Asian students. Speakers have previously publicly thanked them for their attendance and assistance to graduates in their college journeys.
The former Multicultural Engagement Center on Feb. 20, 2024. While some DEI wall art has been removed from the space, others remain. (Photo Credit: The Texas Tribune / Maria Crane)The MEC used to house student organizations, but they now say they are unsure whether they can even reserve space for their events there.
“People are scared, people who work for the university”, Solis said. They might want to give us money or might want to give some resources some way for our events, but they don’t know if they can. So just out of fear, uncertainty and a lack of transparency, they might just say, ‘Sorry, we can’t provide anything at this time.'”
The student organizations have set up GoFundMe pages to raise money to help with the costs of hosting graduation parties this year. The university’s alumni organization, Texas Exes, recently announced that they’d host cultural graduations for students, according to The Daily Texan.
This particular class, whose high school graduations were slowed by COVID in 2020, is determined to host these celebrations, according to Ariana Seeloff, a senior and co-director of the Afrikan American Affairs Collective.
“To have this happen four years later, and not be able to have a proper send-off from college for these degrees that we’ve worked so hard to earn, it’s unimaginable”, she said. This senior class deserves to be celebrated, they say.
But students say it’s unclear what will happen to culturally specific graduations after this year.
Lecture or instruction?
Paige Schilt, a former lecturer at UT-Austin, was thrilled when she was invited by the university’s undergraduate college to give a talk this semester about how to find a mentor as a student navigating higher education for the first time.
As a therapist, teacher, and writer, Schilt planned to draw on her own personal experiences as an LGBTQ student as she sought to promote her own position as a scholar. Staff and administrators were excited about the lecture, she said.
However, she received an email in the middle of January informing her that UT-Austin’s legal team had raised concerns that the lecture might be in violation of SB 17 because it “would fall within a prohibited training, activity, or program.”
SB 17 prohibits mandatory diversity training, which is defined as training developed in reference to race, color or gender identity. Schilt claimed that Schilt’s lecture wasn’t training. SB 17 does not prohibit any DEI-related scholarly research or creative work, and faculty are still allowed to share it on campus.
In an effort to appease the university’s attorneys, Schilt claimed she tried to work with the undergraduate college to change the lecture format and instead gave a reading of her memoir in progress. Ultimately, her talk was replaced with another lecture.
“I was really depressed and discouraged to think that any person from one of the marginalized communities targeted by SB 17 speaking from their own experience was now, by definition, a training,” she said.
Lecturer Paige Schilt planned to talk about how to find mentors as an LGBTQ student navigating higher education for the first time, but her talk was replaced with another lecture after UT-Austin’s legal office had raised concerns the lecture could violate SB 17.(Photo Credit: The Texas Tribune/ Maria Crane)
Lauren Gutterman, an American Studies professor who focuses on LGBTQ issues, claimed that the university’s response to Schilt’s lecture was an error in interpretation of the law.
“This makes no sense to me as the lecture was not a training, it was not required, and it was not limited to any one group of students”, she said. The only reason I can see for their concern is that it was related to LGBTQ+ issues.
Schilt, who taught a class on LGBTQ history at UT- Austin last semester, said it was painful to watch students’ disappointment and sadness last semester when the university reorganized the Gender and Sexuality Center, which is now called the Women’s Community Center.
It was really difficult for me as a teacher who had a strong connection with my students to sort of guide them through the emotions they were having about, “What does this mean about how welcome I am here?” she said.
The torch will be carried by who?
In his December message to the UT-Austin community, Hartzell said he would follow up with students in January regarding the implementation of SB 17. He hasn’t completed it as of late February.
While student groups are trying to fill in the gaps left by the loss of university resources, they worry about who will help incoming students feel supported and welcomed on campus next year. In May, many of the students who are leading these groups will graduate.
Students walk up the steps toward the UT Tower on Feb. 22, 2024.(Photo Credit: The Texas Tribune / Maria Crane)
Guadalupe remarked that being in college can be a stressful and lonely experience. She said she’s scared for underrepresented students who won’t have access to safe places to gather on campus like she did.
“My college experience would have been completely different without their support and resources,” she said. “I think about how much more they’re going to struggle”.
The Texas Tribune collaborates with Open Campus for coverage of higher education.
Disclosure: Texas Exes, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters are not involved in the Tribune’s reporting. Find a complete list of them here.
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For The Texas Tribune, Kate McGee covers higher education. She joined the Tribune in October 2020 after nearly a decade as a reporter at public radio stations across the country, including in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Austin, Reno, Nevada, and New York. Kate was a native of New Jersey and was raised in New York City. She earned her bachelor’s degree from Fordham University. Her work has been featured on NPR’s “Morning Edition,” “All Things Considered,” “Here and Now,” and “The Takeaway” programs. She is based in Austin.
Ikram Mohamed previously worked for The Daily Texan, her campus newspaper, and is currently in her fourth year of journalism and sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. A Pflugerville native, Ikram previously interned with the Austin Chronicle, Texas Observer and Texas Monthly. She can speak Swahili and Somali well.
The preceding article was previously published by The Texas Tribune and is republished with permission.
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