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Rebranding DEI: How Colleges Are Getting Around State Bans
Hot Air ^ | April 13, 2024 | John Sexton

Posted on 04/13/2024 6:28:58 PM PDT by george76

University of Texas which was laying off around 60 employees in order to belatedly comply with a state law prohibiting DEI. I say belatedly because the law in question took effect at the beginning of the year but it seems UT's first reaction wasn't to get rid of DEI offices and employees but instead to simply rebrand them. For instance, at the University of Texas the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement was renamed the Division of Campus and Community Engagement.

But one of the authors of SB 17, the Texas DEI prohibition, caught wind of what was happening and sent schools in Texas a letter making it clear that renaming offices and shuffling staff titles would not be enough to comply with the law.

The letter warns that any attempts to circumvent SB 17’s provisions by merely renaming DEI offices or positions will not be tolerated. The legislation includes strict enforcement measures, including the potential freezing of university funding and legal actions for non-compliance.

The state senator also warned that school administrators would soon be called before legislators to testify about their efforts to comply with the law. In response to this, UT suddenly got the message and announced it was laying off most of its former DEI staffers who'd been given new titles. Its renamed Division of Campus and Community Engagement was shut down.

Yesterday the NY Times reported that this sort of fake compliance with DEI bans is happening at other schools as well.

At the University of Tennessee, the campus D.E.I. program is now called the Division of Access and Engagement.

Louisiana State University also rebranded its diversity office after Jeff Landry, a Trump-backed Republican, was elected governor last fall. Its Division of Inclusion, Civil Rights and Title IX is now called the Division of Engagement, Civil Rights and Title IX.

And at the University of Oklahoma, the diversity office is now the Division of Access and Opportunity.

In what appears to be an effort to placate or, even head fake, opponents of diversity and equity programs, university officials are relaunching their D.E.I. offices under different names, changing the titles of officials, and rewriting requirements to eliminate words like “diversity” and “equity.” In some cases, only the words have changed.

The same thing is happening at Florida State University.

...

The school has reshuffled jobs and turned the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office into the Office of Equal Opportunity Compliance and Engagement.

And in Georgia, where the state Board of Regents banned schools from requiring diversity statements, Kennesaw State University renamed its DEI office the "Division of Organizational Effectiveness, Leadership Development and Inclusive Excellence." A finance professor at Kennesaw State said of the change, "As soon as D.E.I. was uncovered as political left, they now reinvent the language and have morphed into the ‘sense of belonging’ crew."

...

universities are still going to continue to siphon off millions of dollars in tuition to maintain a bureaucracy whose main purpose is to enforce an ever more stringent definition of acceptable thought and action.

The thought police will not be defunded


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: Florida; US: Oklahoma; US: Texas
KEYWORDS: affirmativeaction; dei; die; diversity; education; texas

1 posted on 04/13/2024 6:28:58 PM PDT by george76
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To: george76

The College Fix
https://www.thecollegefix.com/


2 posted on 04/13/2024 6:31:27 PM PDT by linMcHlp
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To: george76

I would never pay for May child’s university education if that child chose a stupid DEI type major. I would also strongly recommend against DEI classes of any sort. Heck I would recommend a trade instead of a degree.


3 posted on 04/13/2024 6:34:43 PM PDT by Chgogal (Welcome to Fuhrer Biden's Weaponized Fascist Banana Republic! It's the road to hell.)
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To: george76

Don’t you wish our side would fight as hard for what we believe in as the left does?


4 posted on 04/13/2024 6:35:43 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: george76

The IDIOTS were the ‘Conservatives’ that actually thought that the colleges would comply.

For Texas, I still want to see a list of the 60 names and their TERMINATION DATES, although I really doubt any of them will be terminated.


5 posted on 04/13/2024 6:39:52 PM PDT by BobL (A society built on MERIT cannot survive on DEI (ref. South Africa, and now USA))
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To: george76
Yesterday the NY Times reported that this sort of fake compliance with DEI bans is happening at other schools as well. At the University of Tennessee, the campus D.E.I. program is now called the Division of Access and Engagement. The same thing is happening at Florida State University.

Defund them...fire the University's President.

6 posted on 04/13/2024 7:32:57 PM PDT by GOPJ (Two items Biden finds at 'Ice Cream Shoppes'? A: Ice cream cones and 6 year old girls to look at...)
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To: george76

Change the name that’s the ticket ,LOL


7 posted on 04/13/2024 7:47:16 PM PDT by butlerweave
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To: george76
"Rebranding DEI: How Colleges Are Getting Around State Bans"

Divide-Enslave-Indoctrinate
8 posted on 04/13/2024 7:49:35 PM PDT by clearcarbon (Fraudulent elections have consequences.)
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To: george76

Just wait for UT’s president to start whining that if he can’t have DEI, then that’ll effectively shut down Longhorn football. Don’t laugh, they tried that excuse on the Top 10% law, which they caused themselves for discrimination of admitting whites into the the Law Dept. (Hopwood v. TX). Yeah, upside down thinking but hey, “just keepin’ Austin weird.” Bunch of loonies. Remember Cocks Not Glocks with sweet little gals protesting the 2nd by waving around giant plastic you know whats.


9 posted on 04/13/2024 7:50:44 PM PDT by bgill (.)
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To: george76

As I have said many times, anti-white racism has many names - affirmative action, CRT, DEI, it’s all the same, every time you ban one they come up with another name, and they can invent names faster than you can pass laws.

The idea of a “protected class” (blacks, in this case) implies the existence of an “unprotected class”.

The existence of an unprotected class is repugnant to the US Constitution, because it denies the privileges and immunities of US citizens (Article IV, clause 2) to some but not all, and it denies some but not all US citizens the equal protection of the laws (Amendment XIV).

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 repeals certain parts of the Constitution without going through the amendment process. As such, it is presumptively unconstitutional.


10 posted on 04/13/2024 7:55:50 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et de phrases)
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To: bgill
Just wait for UT’s president to start whining that if he can’t have DEI, then that’ll effectively shut down Longhorn football

Don't be silly. They are making up the new name already.

11 posted on 04/13/2024 7:56:48 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et de phrases)
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To: Chgogal
I would also strongly recommend against DEI classes of any sort

No problem.

Thye will accept a DEI ban soon, just as soon as they have the new name for it.

Didn't I tell you all that banning "CRT" would just result in calling it something else?

The funny thing is, the US Constitution already bans anti-white racism.

All that has to happen is that it has to be enforced.

First step is to litigate the creation in law of unprotected classes - obviously, facially unconstitutional.

12 posted on 04/13/2024 8:01:29 PM PDT by Jim Noble (Assez de mensonges et de phrases)
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To: george76

Its very simple. Fire some university presidents and department heads. Once a few of them get publicly chit canned, everybody else will get the message real fast.


13 posted on 04/13/2024 8:15:49 PM PDT by FLT-bird
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To: bgill

Schools which try this rebranding b.s. should have their President dismissed, and 10% of the faculty cut. Just keep the STEM and Engineering Professors intact.

Students would get better educations after this cut, and it would save lots of money.


14 posted on 04/13/2024 8:22:59 PM PDT by The_Media_never_lie ( )
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To: george76

and dei was a work around from the court banning affirmative action admissions. The left is not anything if it isn’t persistent.


15 posted on 04/13/2024 8:24:02 PM PDT by coalminersson (since )
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To: clearcarbon

DEI: Didn’t-Earn-It.


16 posted on 04/14/2024 5:54:59 AM PDT by Clioman
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To: george76

Same methodology as Acorn.
They get “discovered”, they just change the name and keep moving forward.

I’d bet much of DIE is made up of ex Acorn people.


17 posted on 04/15/2024 5:41:16 AM PDT by Zathras
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