Victory! Kansas Ends Mandatory DEI in Higher Ed

Lawmakers in Kansas struck a blow against the discriminatory ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) by ending required DEI indoctrination in the curricula of public universities. Kansas becomes the second state to enact legislation modeled after the Goldwater Institute’s Freedom from Indoctrination Act, a powerful reform that helps to end political indoctrination in higher education and restore public universities to their core educational purpose.

The Sunflower State follows Idaho, which adopted Goldwater’s reform last year.

Across the country, students are forced to take courses indoctrinating them in the discriminatory and radical tenets of DEI. As documented in 2024 by Speech First, which co-authored the Freedom from Indoctrination Act, over two-thirds of major American universities required students to take DEI courses to graduate. Fifty-nine percent of those universities with DEI requirements were public institutions.

These DEI requirements compel students to enroll in courses of dubious academic and professional value. The Goldwater Institute has revealed that a required “Diversity and Civility” course at Arizona State University’s journalism school lectured students on risible concepts like “microaggressions” and “cisgender privilege.” At the University of Arizona, a course fulfilling the school’s “diversity” requirement demanded that students “live like a bug” to understand the experience of “marginalized” groups.

DEI requirements also waste an enormous amount of student and taxpayer money. Goldwater has found that DEI mandates at public universities across the country cost at least $1.8 billion over each four-year period. Students will spend at least 40 million hours over the same period satisfying DEI requirements.

Among other benefits, the Freedom from Indoctrination Act protects against the politicization of academic programs that are supposed to prepare students to succeed in careers and in life. Dr. Tim Davis, professor of social work at Kansas’s Fort Hays State University, has sounded the alarm about the corruption of standards in his field. The national accreditor for social work education, which effectively licenses all social work degree programs in the country, has mandated that programs push DEI in all aspects of the curriculum. As Dr. Davis stated, “Reducing social work to a single mandatory ideological framework will undermine the profession and hurt the most vulnerable in our communities.”

By enacting the Freedom from Indoctrination Act, Kansas lawmakers are refusing to submit to the discriminatory mandates of an unaccountable accreditor. Every state should follow Kansas’s lead to protect public universities from politicized accreditors that have abandoned their responsibility to ensure academic quality.

The Goldwater Institute will continue to advance policies that will restore universities to their core functions of seeking knowledge and preparing students for success.

Timothy K. Minella is the Director of Higher Education at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.