Louisiana Public Universities Force Future Teachers to Undergo DEI Indoctrination

Louisiana’s public universities are mandating that aspiring teachers take courses indoctrinating them in the radical tenets of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) just to graduate, a new Goldwater Institute report reveals.  

Instead of training students in apolitical pedagogy that would improve academic achievement for Louisiana students, these universities are using taxpayer funds to create a cadre of social-justice advocates trained to advance the progressive agenda.  

At least three public institutions require that students in education programs take DEI courses. At the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, students seeking a master’s degree in education must enroll in “Diversity for the Progressive Educator,” whose official course description focuses on “critical elements of race/ethnicity, class, [and] gender.”  

Instructors of Louisiana’s mandatory DEI courses have stated that their goal is to increase students’ commitment to an activist agenda of dismantling “systems of inequality.” One instructor even describes herself as a “social justice educator” focused on “anti-oppressive pedagogies, and related theories (Critical Race Theory, Black Feminist, etc.),” who wants her students to “unearth, challenge, and examine” their “positions of privilege and power.”  

Perhaps worse still, published research from one of the course’s instructors suggests that the faculty use these courses as a testing ground—with students as the guinea pigs—”to determine to what extent an asset-based social justice curriculum could cultivate critical consciousness” among students, including their “ability to recognize and analyze systems of inequality and the commitment to take action against these systems.” 

The people of Louisiana should not tolerate a system that forces students to undergo this indoctrination just to pursue a career in teaching. Although President Donald Trump has dismantled federal support for DEI, his executive orders rightly exempted “academic instruction” in higher education from these new federal protections, leaving oversight of academic standards to the states. Louisiana must act to eliminate DEI indoctrination in the classroom.  

Louisiana lawmakers should follow the lead of Idaho by adopting Goldwater’s Freedom from Indoctrination Act. This powerful reform ends mandatory DEI coursework while protecting faculty from mandates to adopt DEI practices in their teaching. By enacting this reform along with prohibitions on DEI in state government, Louisiana can take a giant step forward in defeating the DEI scourge for good.  

Fortunately, legislation such as HB421—sponsored by Rep. Emily Chenevert—is already advancing through the statehouse and would likewise protect students from DEI course mandates. If enacted, such measures will ensure that Louisiana’s students and future teachers will never again be forced into such ideological indoctrination, but rather will be allowed to apply their time and talents to more serious studies.

Read the full report here and learn more about Goldwater’s effort to defeat DEI here 

Timothy K. Minella is the Senior Constitutionalism Fellow at the Goldwater Institute.