As Texas lawmakers wrap up the first week of the 2025 legislative session, Gov. has signaled another public education priority he wants on their list: banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in K-12 public schools.

“No taxpayer dollars will be used to fund DEI in our schools,” Abbott said in a post on the social media platform X on Thursday, using the acronym for diversity efforts. “Schools must focus on fundamentals of education, not indoctrination.”

Barring DEI efforts at K-12 schools would expand a statewide ban for colleges and universities approved two years ago. The governor’s office did not immediately respond to questions from The Texas Tribune on Friday seeking more details on Abbott’s remarks.

His comments came in response to posted by Corey DeAngelis, a senior fellow at the American Culture Project, allegedly showing a Richardson school district official answering questions from an individual who recorded the interaction and asked whether the district would allow a transgender girl to share a room with other students on a field trip. The school official, identified as the district’s executive DEI director, said the district would respond to the situation on a case-by-case basis with parental input.

Richardson school district officials said in a statement to the Tribune that only students of the same sex assigned at birth share rooms. The district also said its schools follow all anti-discrimination requirements, including a law stating that student-athletes must compete in events according to their sex assigned at birth.

“The district is not aware of any instance where this requirement was not followed, nor of any RISD-specific information suggesting the requirement should not be followed,” said Tim Clark, the district’s executive director of communications.

During the 2023 legislative session, Texas passed Senate Bill 17, which offices, programs and training at publicly-funded universities. Under the law, universities cannot create diversity offices, hire employees to carry out diversity-related initiatives or require any DEI training as a condition for employment or admission.

Since the law was passed, universities across the state have moved to shutter DEI offices and efforts. Those offices played a pivotal role in helping Black, Latino, LGBTQ+ and other underrepresented students adjust to life on college campuses and foster a sense of community among their peers.

Educational institutions across the country made promises following the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer to work harder at creating more inclusive environments for their students. But many of those efforts have taken significant steps back as state officials have passed legislation to shutter them, labeling those efforts as left-wing indoctrination.

Abbott’s desire to now extend the law to K-12 public schools represents the latest attempt by Texas state officials to exert greater control over how educational institutions go about ensuring students from all backgrounds feel included, while limiting how they can teach and talk about gender, sexual orientation and America’s history of racism.

Abbott’s promise to prevent taxpayer dollars from flowing toward DEI initiatives at schools comes as public education spending is set to play a central role during the 2025 legislative session, which began earlier this week.

During the last session, House Democrats and rural Republicans’ efforts to block a school voucher program — Abbott’s top legislative priority for the last few years — came at the cost of not securing a funding boost for public schools, which has left Texas school districts grappling with multimillion-dollar budget deficits and other serious financial difficulties like school closures.

Abbott now says he has the votes to get a voucher program, which would allow parents to use tax dollars to pay for their children’s private education, across the finish line. He has also to increase public education funding this year.

The governor’s comments immediately drew praise from Sen. , R-Conroe, chair of the Senate’s Education Committee and author of the current DEI law.

“SB 17 has become a model for the entire nation, and I am ready to expand the law to protect the 6 million students in Texas schools from failed, divisive DEI programs,” Creighton wrote on social media. “Let’s get to work.”

This article originally appeared in at . The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.

—Carter G. Woodson

Public schools, it seems, are, once again, the fresh front in the culture wars, the next “democratic institution” to be undermined and remade in the sanitized sepia of revisionist white supremacy. The have always spread through .��

Fresh off a series of electoral repudiations of various efforts to acknowledge in meaningful terms the impact of systemic racism on our children, our schools and society, and a general gnashing of teeth from white conservatives, there is a moment of possibility in the air for alt-right demagogues and would-be heirs to the MAGA trash throne.  

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is heir apparent. While a federal judge its implementation earlier this month, DeSantis was able to pass into law last year his Stop WOKE Act, which prohibits the teaching and mention of systemic racism in schools and workplaces; was able the College Board’s Advanced Placement African American Studies course and is now going after , getting one publisher to omit references to race, including in the story of Rosa Parks’s arrest.

And while I laud the efforts of those who are fighting back — including three Florida high school students, represented by , who said they planned to sue DeSantis over trying to kill the AP African American Studies course —the Florida governor’s actions are s of more to come from his ilk as .

White America’s power and position are so deeply entrenched in the very fabric of American schooling and society, the by the modicum of diversity, equity and inclusion work now being done in our public schools would be laughable if it didn’t have such chilling and dangerous consequences for Black and brown children.  

From how we finance public schools to how we assign our children to them, the prevailing structure of traditional public education is inexorably tilted against Black and brown students. The form and function of our traditional public school systems are a produced by racial and economic inequity. 

I worked with fellow educator-activists at the to create the Freedom Schools Literacy Academy in Philadelphia, which have since expanded to Camden, New Jersey, Detroit, Michigan and now Memphis, Tennessee. Our approach integrates proven best practices of the , the Philadelphia Freedom Schools, and the independent Black Schools movement, with a culturally responsive, affirming and sustaining early-literacy curriculum.��

At our summer academy, expert Black educators coach aspiring Black college teacher apprentices and work with high school pre-apprentices exploring careers in education. The effect for our underserved Black and brown elementary students is the personalizedthey need, coupled with a deepening of their racial identity.

Scads of provide evidence that effective, coherent, ; rich, robust, rigorous content; and are the magic ingredients of high-quality learning. Too often we have inadequacies or incompetencies at each one of those levels. None of our systems are aligned for cultural proficiency and creating the kinds of learning opportunities our students need to both be successful academically and feel connected with and supported by their teachers as people.��

Research also shows that exposing students to challenging and even in the classroom increases civic matters. Navigating controversial topics in the classroom builds communication and critical thinking skills. With a well-equipped teacher, students can ask difficult questions, grapple with ambiguity and appreciate the perspectives of other people.

However, too many teacher preparation programs and their faculties have proven time and time again to be woefully short of truly culturally responsive to Black and brown communities. The heights of tenured teachers’ college posts are too far removed from the lived experiences of Black and brown students. 

We know that when Black students have Black teachers, they . When they have one Black teacher by third grade, they are 13% more likely to enroll in college. With two Black teachers in the mix early on, that stat jumps to 32%. When Black boys from underserved communities have a Black teacher, they’re far more likely to experience on-time high school graduation. In fact, their dropout rates plummet by almost 40%. Our Fortifying the student-to-educator-activist pipeline is what we seek, because we know it is critical to

Dr. Carter G. Woodson in his genius knew that there would be no lynching if it did not start in classrooms. writes that Woodson asserted that the violence inflicted upon Black bodies began at the level of ideas and knowledge: “The knowledge system of schools constructed Black people as ahistorical subjects, obscured historical systems of oppression, and taught students to look to White-Eurocentric colonial ideology as a human standard. At an epistemic level, Black people were “human beings of the lower order.” 

Schools failed to offer African American students any cogent social analysis of their historically constructed oppression, no alternative system of representation to interpret Black life. Woodson recognized this phenomenon as a structured system of “mis-education.” 

The work we do is critical to the education of Black children nationwide. We owe it to who entrust schools with the care of the persons of most value, their children. We hope to express to those parents that we, too, value their children. We see , what is possible when students and teachers are connected in a supporting and trusting way. From strengthening a student’s racial and ethnic identity and promoting a sense of belonging to improving critical thinking skills and strengthening reading and math understanding, makes big differences for students — for all students.

The moment shows us both the challenge and opportunity in . The current post-truth political climate puts in sharp relief the need for rigorous and clear-eyed teaching in our public schools.�� 

An unsettling proportion of Americans now hold views that are increasingly ahistorical and untethered from reality on everything from voting rights to race relations. Beyond showing how easily whole segments of society can be manipulated, we also see the urgent need for teachers that are well prepared for the profession and possess the skills and competencies needed to equip students with what they need to navigate ambiguity, uncertainty, and outright racism, particularly of the sort manufactured for political advantage.

Doing so will require all of us to do our part. That means teacher preparation programs and institutions and finally, fully embrace a . It also means that we need to do a much better job of getting more Black and brown young people interested in and pursuing a career in teaching.��And it means that we need schools to engage and empower communities of color and co-create a vision of public education that reflects their diverse needs and aspirations.��

There’s a tremendous amount of work to be done and precious little time to do it. Everyday that goes by is another opportunity for us to slide further from the more perfect union that we all deserve to see realized.��Progress isn’t promised, but it is possible if we have a public education system that supports it. That starts with ensuring teachers can teach — and are prepared without fear or reservation.