Texas Introduces Landmark Bill to End DEI Indoctrination in Public Universities 

Texas is leading the counterattack against discriminatory “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs in public higher education. Rep. Cody Harris recently introduced a landmark bill, HB2548, that would end mandatory DEI indoctrination in the college classrooms, eliminating requirements that waste students’ time and tuition dollars on courses promoting a radical leftist agenda.  

Although Texas abolished DEI offices at public universities in 2023, students are still being required to sit through DEI courses just to graduate. Several universities are forcing students to receive instruction in radical DEI concepts. The University of Texas at Austin, for instance, requires students to take courses that lecture on America’s “systemic barriers to equality and inclusiveness.” Students are expected to reflect on how they might “minimize marginalization in the U.S.,” enlisting them in an activist program of identity politics.  

In addition to having an obvious political agenda, DEI course requirements waste an enormous amount of taxpayer and tuition money. The Goldwater Institute found that satisfying DEI mandates at Texas’s public universities costs students and state taxpayers approximately $100 million or more over each four-year period in which the student body has to complete the requirement. This is $100 million that could be spent promoting more academically serious coursework or streamlining the completion of students’ degrees. 

Rep. Harris’s bill, the Freedom from Indoctrination Act, builds upon the reform model policy developed by the Goldwater Institute and Speech First to cement the strongest protections against radical DEI indoctrination anywhere in the nation. The bill  eliminates these wasteful DEI course requirements and prohibits universities from using forcing state taxpayers to directly state funding to supportsubsidize these DEI courses. This legislation also builds on President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders that have prohibited discriminatory DEI practices in the federal government and in organizations receiving federal funding, but which left responsibility to the states to secure the integrity of their academic course curricula.  

HB 2548 further builds on the successes already achieved in states like Florida to root out DEI general education requirements, where activist faculty have admitted that such provisions are putting a stop to the artificial enrollment subsidies propping up DEI infused courses.  

Texas lawmakers enacted the nation’s strongest protections against the DEI administrative state in 2023. Now, thanks to Rep. Harris’ HB2548, it is poised to implement the most powerful protections against DEI’s grip over academic instruction as well. 

Indeed, Tthe Freedom from Indoctrination Act takes the critical next step in restoring true academic freedom and returning universities to their core missions: the pursuit of knowledge and the education of citizens.  

Timothy K. Minella is a Senior Fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.