SALT LAKE CITY — Shortly after taking office in 2023, Republican state Rep. Katy Hall heard from constituents complaining about how their adult children were required to write diversity, equity and inclusion statements while applying for medical and dental schools and other graduate programs in Utah.

“It doesn’t seem right,” Hall said. “It doesn’t seem like it belongs in an application.”

It took two legislative sessions, but Hall successfully sponsored a new law that not only prohibits the use of such DEI statements but also bars state institutions from relying on specific individual characteristics in employment and education decisions. Additionally, it eliminates central offices dedicated to diversity, equity and inclusion.

In Utah and beyond, lawmakers are enjoying growing success in their pushback against DEI programs at public universities, many of which have hired administrators and established departments dedicated to creating more diverse faculties and student bodies. Some schools’ requirement that job and student applicants explain in writing how they’d bring DEI initiatives to their work or schooling has aroused especially strong opposition. Some states have dismantled DEI departments and programs, as well as ended race- and gender-based programs and scholarships.

Many in Utah describe their approach as more measured than that of other states. The law, which goes into effect July 1, includes a carve-out that allows DEI to be discussed in classroom instruction as well as in research and for accreditation purposes.

Republican Gov. Spencer Cox, who signed Hall’s in January, said it “offers a balanced solution” even as it prohibits the type of training sessions he required of his staff in 2021.

The intent of the legislation, Hall said, is to shift higher education away from a focus on identity.

“This is what we felt was a more nuanced way to say: ‘We want diversity, we want equality of opportunity, we want inclusion, but we want diversity of opinion and a diversity of thought and diversity of religion and diversity of everything.’ Not just external, personal identity characteristics,” Hall said.

“We used to be able to have discussions about politics without it coming to a judgment of someone’s moral character,” she added. “My hope is that there will be a little more political neutrality where you can have discussions and feel safe to have those discussions without it being so divisive.”

But the bill passed along party lines, pointed out state Rep. Angela Romero, a Democrat who serves as the House minority leader in Utah. She described what’s happening in her state as part of a broader culture war aimed at painting higher education as elite and out of touch.

“This is a national agenda,” Romero said in an interview. “It’s a machine and it’s been going for a while and it’s picking up momentum.”

Utah’s rollback is among dozens of simultaneous efforts to scale back DEI programs — to varying degrees — in state capitals and on higher education oversight boards in other Republican-led states. In at least 22 states, the legislature has enacted legislation, or public universities have set policies prohibiting or modifying DEI measures at state university systems, according to a running tally in .

Among the earliest passed was in North Dakota asking students and prospective university employees about their commitment to DEI. Florida followed last year with a that does away with diversity statements and DEI offices. Alabama in 2024 enacted a restricting public employees from being forced to agree with so-called divisive concepts, including the idea that “by virtue of an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, ethnicity, or national origin, the individual is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously.”

In South Dakota, the Board of Regents recently enacted a policy that bars employees at its six public universities from putting their preferred gender pronouns or tribal affiliations in email signatures, according to . Most recently, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Board of Trustees last month to shift $2.3 million of DEI spending toward public safety and policing on campus. Then, the entire UNC System Board of Governors to abolish DEI policies in place since 2019 at all 17 of its campuses.

A chilling effect

Many of the efforts to roll back DEI initiatives in states have the same roots as a campaign against critical race theory spearheaded by Seattle documentary filmmaker Christopher Rufo, who in 2020 elevated a once-obscure theory about the pervasiveness of racism in American law and institutions to a household term.

Often, efforts to undo DEI initiatives argue that students — especially white students — are harmed by learning about the history of racism in the United States because it may leave them feeling guilty or ashamed of their identity. Multiple states, including , have adopted near-identical language in anti-DEI legislation that bans instruction that might prompt a person to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex.

In April, polling by found that 77% of Republicans say they believe that “discrimination against white people is as problematic as discrimination against Black Americans.”

Anti-DEI laws have had a chilling effect on higher education wherever they’ve been enacted, said Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, a nonprofit membership association of faculty and other academic professionals.

“The laws are deliberately vague so that professors have to be constantly thinking, ‘If I say this, will I be breaking the law? Will I lose my job or be arrested by the government if I say this in my classroom?’“ Mulvey said. “I mean, that’s where we are in America in 2024. These are the worries faculty have in an authoritarian society, and they have no place in a democracy.”

At the University of Texas, anti-DEI legislation led the system to eliminate 300 positions and to cut diversity training programs at multiple campuses.

The situation is similar in Florida, said Paul Ortiz, a professor of history and a union leader at the University of Florida. He’s leaving the school after 15 years for a position at Cornell University in New York. The fallout from the state’s DEI policies wasn’t the only reason he’s leaving — he got a great job offer — but it contributed to his decision, Ortiz said.

“To pretend that it’s not having an effect on the cultural and intellectual life of the state is the worst thing of all,” Ortiz said. “I’m hoping the pendulum is going to swing back.”

Students are the real losers, Mulvey said. At the University of Oklahoma, for example, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt’s executive order ending DEI programs in state offices and agencies the National Education for Women’s Leadership program. The program encourages undergraduate women to engage in politics and public policy. Since its founding in 2002, more than 650 students have attended.

Stitt told the that his executive order was about race, not the women’s leadership program, and called the backlash against his policy “political criticism.”

“What we’re seeing now is nobody’s helped when these offices are closed or programs are shut down, no one’s better off,” Mulvey said. “We’re having watered-down discussions and anodyne classes because faculty without tenure are afraid of losing their job if they say the wrong thing or if someone takes it out of context or tapes them and puts it online.”

DEI statements

DEI statements in university hiring have been one of the easiest targets nationwide, in part because there’s less support for them even among more progressive educators who support wider DEI initiatives.

Editorial boards and columnists at outlets as varied as , and the have railed against diversity statements, saying they too often result in “self-censorship and ideological policing” on college campuses. Many elite universities, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, have DEI statements as a requirement of employment applications. At best, critics argue, they’re boilerplate that echoes what employers want to hear, rendering them useless. At their worst, they serve as ideological litmus tests.

“We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work,” MIT President Sally Kornbluth said in a statement to in May, confirming the university’s new approach.

But DEI statements have their defenders. Suzanne Penuel, an associate professor who teaches first-year literature and writing at the University of South Carolina Lancaster, said she witnessed how high-quality DEI statements set job candidates apart when she served on the hiring committee for a position teaching American history. Nearly all academic applicants have polished curriculum vitae, impeccable recommendations and pitch-perfect cover letters, she wrote in an op-ed in .

Their DEI statements gave them personality, Penuel said in an interview. It was easier to tell which applicants would take a student-centered approach to their work; one applicant wrote that the textbooks used in the school’s history courses ought to be free, an interpretation that the hiring committee viewed as an inclusive approach to education.

She worries that the assault on already slim DEI initiatives in South Carolina is a continuation of a trend that began with a 2021 legislative requirement that all college students be taught , and a proposed in elementary schools.

“I hope I never see the day when there is this prescribed list of texts from a narrow list of publishers, and only some topics can be discussed,” Penuel said.

In Utah, where Democrats hold just 14 of the 75 seats in the state House of Representatives, Romero fought unsuccessfully to keep the anti-DEI legislation from passing.

Her reasons for opposing the legislation were partly personal. As a first-generation college student at the University of Utah, she took advantage of what was then called the Center for Ethnic Student Affairs, an academic advising that could now be considered a DEI initiative. It was a safe place in a state where the dominant religion and culture often excludes people of color, Romero said.

Because of her association with the center, Romero landed an internship at the state legislature in 1994, leading to a career working in municipal government in Salt Lake City. And now, she serves as president of the .

“Because of that, I’m here now,” Romero said when the bill was up for debate. “What it did is it addressed the disparities. … There’s unintentional consequences when we just try to sweep things and say we’re all the same, because we’re not. There’s still a lot of things that have to change in this country for us all to be on a level playing field.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on and .

Daniel Brinks, who chairs the government department at the University of Texas at Austin, doesn’t usually have a tough time recruiting professors. After all, UT is one of the best research universities in the country, located in a high-tech boomtown with a thriving music scene, a warm climate and first-rate enchiladas.

But this year, in “a pretty significant change,” Brinks said, eight candidates turned down job offers. Several of them cited events transpiring a few blocks south of campus, at the Texas Capitol, where some Republican lawmakers were pushing to eliminate tenure at state colleges and universities.

Anti-tenure Republicans in Texas — and in other states including , , , ,  and  — have said they want to rein in unaccountable professors who are pushing a liberal agenda in the classroom.

Supporters of tenure, which professors typically must earn after years of teaching and publishing original research, argue that it protects academic freedom. Without it, they say, professors might be wary of taking on controversial topics for fear of being fired.

“American higher education is the envy of the world because of the current system,” Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, told Stateline. “These bills that weaken tenure or limit tenure are bills that will undermine the quality of education in the state.”

But defenders of tenure — a practice adopted in its current form in 1940 — have deployed another argument that goes beyond academic freedom: Attacks on tenure are a threat to state economies. That argument, used by Brinks in Texas and others elsewhere, has figured prominently in debates over tenure in several states.

“If you no longer can attract the top researchers, you no longer have people developing cutting-edge technologies, cutting-edge medical innovations,” Brinks told Stateline, echoing testimony he delivered to Texas legislators.

The top teachers and researchers receive federal grants, Brinks noted, “and if you don’t have the top researchers in the various fields here, then that source of funds, which is millions and millions of dollars, it just goes away.”

Despite such concerns, the Texas Senate in April approved legislation that would have prohibited public colleges and universities from granting tenure to faculty members, starting in 2024.

“Tenured university professors are the only people in our society that have the guarantee of a job,” Texas Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, who presides over the Senate, . “These professors claim ‘academic freedom’ and hide behind their tenure to continue blatantly advancing their agenda of societal division.”

But the Texas House last month approved a much milder version, allowing schools to fire tenured faculty for “professional incompetence” or “conduct involving moral turpitude.” is the one the legislature sent to the desk of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who is expected to .

State Rep. John Kuempel, the Republican who authored the House version, it would “provide accountability while maintaining an environment that is conducive to recruiting and retaining the best faculty and researchers in the state and nation.”

The economic argument also has surfaced in Ohio, where the state Senate a sweeping that aims to promote “intellectual diversity” on campuses. The measure would mandate a yearly performance review for faculty, including those with tenure.

Shortly before the vote, state Sen. Jerry Cirino, the Republican sponsor of the bill, argued that the legislation would attract more students and faculty to Ohio. The bill is still .

“When all is said and done here, our universities are going to be better,” Cirino said. “We are going to attract more people who have been turned away because of the liberal bias that is incontrovertible in our institutions in Ohio.”

But Democratic state Rep. Joe Miller argued the opposite, citing released last month which found that Ohio’s 14 public universities had a $68.9 billion impact on the state’s economy in fiscal year 2021-2022 — 8.8% of Ohio’s total gross state product. The study also found that the universities and their students supported nearly 867,000 jobs, 1 in 8 in Ohio.

The legislation would “make it extremely difficult to attract students and faculty to Ohio, which will be extraordinarily damaging to our economy, financially impacting cities from Akron, to Athens, Kent and Columbus,” Miller .

Economic concerns over curbing tenure also have been raised in and .

“We’re one of the few states, particularly of our size, to have two tier-one research institutions, so doing things to damage their reputation has broad implications,” Dustin Miller, executive director of the Iowa Chamber Alliance,  in explaining his group’s opposition to anti-tenure bills in his state.

There is little doubt that research universities are economic engines.

In a recent review of relevant research, the Brookings Institution think tank showing that higher state spending on universities to more patents and entrepreneurship; that each new patent outside the university in the local economy; and that regions that to a land grant university over a century ago have stronger economies than regions without one.

Joshua Drucker, a University of Illinois Chicago associate professor who about the economic impact of research institutions, said the millions of dollars that top researchers bring into their universities are “pure addition to a region,” and that curbing tenure could diminish that flow.

“What I expect to happen if tenure is severely weakened, but only in some places, [is that] those places would then have to spend a lot more to get top talent or they will lose the top talent,” he said.

Brinks, a top expert in his field who has secured funding from the National Science Foundation and worked with researchers around the world, said he always thought the University of Texas “was the perfect place for me.”

“I really like the mission of a public university in a place like Texas. I think we do something that’s really important to the state,” he said. “But to the extent that this atmosphere of questioning and even hostility to our mission and what we do continues, then it does occasionally raise questions about going to a private university or going out of state.

“It’s dispiriting to find that you’re the object of suspicion when you think what you’re doing is really important and valuable.”

is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on and .

WASHINGTON — Incomplete written guidelines and penalties that had not been updated since 2016. 

But early fall undergraduate enrollment suggest “no signs of recovery”, with the nation’s public universities hit hardest, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. 

Across 2- and 4-year public and private nonprofit institutions, numbers continue to decline nationwide, now 6.5 percent below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. 

And key public institutions, such as , Universities, and the , are experiencing the worst declines.

First-year enrollment at community colleges for the 2021-22 academic year is 20.9 percent behind fall 2019. Total undergraduate enrollment at community colleges is 14.1 percent behind. In contrast, 4-year private nonprofit colleges experienced a 1.2 percent drop from 2019 to 2021.

Highly selective, elite schools are the only ones to rebound, netting gains in undergrad enrollment about 1.4 percent above fall 2019 levels. 

Roughly 8.4 million students and 50 percent of higher education institutions are reflected in the National Student Clearinghouse’s report, which includes data collected through September 23. While subgroup trends may change as more institutions report, . 

Here are five key findings from the October report:

1. There are 6.5% fewer undergraduates enrolled this year than in 2019.

The declines seen last year have persisted. Overall enrollment has dropped 3.2 percent, following 2020’s 3.3 percent drop. 

Four states saw declines higher than two times this national average: California, Indiana, Mississippi and West Virginia. New Hampshire saw more gains than any other state — the outlier now has 7.9 percent more undergraduates enrolled than in 2019.

2. 22.3% fewer Black first-years are enrolled than in 2019, the biggest decline of any ethnic/racial group.

When looking at total undergraduate enrollment, beyond just first-years, there are 11 percent fewer Black students enrolled than the year prior to the pandemic.

White and Native American or Indigenous students experienced the second and third highest declines.

12.7 percent fewer Native American or Indigenous undergraduate students are enrolled overall. However there are 21 percent more Native students, and 1 percent more Latino students, enrolled at private nonprofit universities than in 2019.

3. First-year classes are 12.3% smaller than pre-pandemic levels, and at community colleges, 20.8% smaller.

Public community colleges experienced the worst declines in freshman enrollment. Compared to all other institutions, they remain the most impacted sector, with overall enrollment declining 14.1 percent since the pandemic began. Their highest drops were from Black students (33.4 percent) and students aged 21-24 (21.4 percent).

4. Undergraduate programs have lost more men (9.3%) than women (5.3%) since 2019.

These declines have not been consistent across institution types — community colleges’ first-year classes saw women’s enrollment drop almost five times the rate of men, at a total of 10 percent. 

Overall analysis from 2019 to 2021 shows more men have not enrolled in undergrad programs than women.

5. Less selective, public schools had higher declines than any other sector: 5.2% since last fall and 7.9% since the pandemic began.

More selective, private schools have been able to retain and recruit more students than their public, less selective peers. Many have also discussed some elite during the pandemic, making the institutions more wealthy. 

Public institutions’ starker declines may suggest barriers to college have been exacerbated by the pandemic, like financial and familial stressors.