The state of Idaho has struck a monumental blow against “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) by eliminating mandatory indoctrination in DEI from the curricula of public universities. Idaho becomes the first state government to adopt the Goldwater Institute’s Freedom from Indoctrination Act, a powerful reform that helps to end political indoctrination and restore public universities to their core academic purposes.
Even as the Trump Administration ends federal support for DEI initiatives in higher education outside the classroom, state governments must act to eliminate DEI from mandatory academic coursework at the public institutions they oversee. Idaho is blazing a trail for other states to follow.
DEI Mandates Indoctrinate Students While Wasting Money
Across the country, students are forced to take courses indoctrinating them in the discriminatory and radical tenets of DEI. As documented by Speech First, which co-authored the Freedom from Indoctrination Act reform, over two-thirds of major American universities require students to take DEI courses just 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” in order 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.
Idaho Leads the Way
As State Senator Ben Toews observed in bringing Idaho’s new measure to the floor of the senate, “Should our institutions of higher education be havens for free inquiry and pursuit of truth, or should they be vehicles of indoctrination and activism under a worldview that rejects the very idea of objective truth?”
Samuel Lair of the Idaho Freedom Foundation similarly testified in support of the legislation, DEI is “inherently political and divisive…The core function of the university should be directed toward forming educators, engineers, teachers, and lawyers, and not political activists.”
In signing this new legislation, Gov. Brad Little has helped Idaho lead the way for the rest of the country by prohibiting public universities from requiring DEI courses.
Already, other states such as Texas and Iowa are likewise advancing Goldwater’s reform to rid DEI course mandates from all levels of instruction. The University of North Carolina regents have even acted themselves to eliminate such mandates without waiting for their state lawmakers.
What Comes Next?
Enacting this legislation in states across the country will continue to build on the previous reforms that eliminated DEI bureaucracies from public universities. Especially if enacted in tandem with the reforms now being implemented in Florida to eliminate DEI coursework from general education offerings, this legislation will put a stop to the artificial subsidy for DEI classes in higher education.
Ending mandatory indoctrination in academic coursework will also complement the Trump Administration’s elimination of federal promotion of DEI to restore public universities to their core teaching and research missions. Goldwater will continue to fight for our policies that will reform the broken higher education system in America.
Timothy K. Minella is Senior Constitutionalism Fellow at the Goldwater Institute’s Van Sittert Center for Constitutional Advocacy.
