While efforts to further curtail DEI will continue into 2025, college students are far more optimistic about diversity initiatives on campus, according to a new survey.
The move bars state institutions from supporting any office, initiative, center or policy related to DEI ideology, a term the resolution defined as any approach that prioritizes identity characteristics over a student's merit.
While race-conscious admissions practices were touted to help colleges and universities increase the diversity of their incoming class sizes, its actual contribution was marginal at best, according to a new analysis by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce (CEW).
School leaders who wish to comply with new regulations while simultaneously ensuring they're appealing to diverse student bodies are parrying legislative restrictions with a simple yet sly strategy: rebranding their DEI offices.
Whether it be introducing bilingual degree programs or scoping out medical professions sorely in need of a diverse workforce, these two institutions are leveraging the uptick in Latinx population growth to boost their brand.
As colleges and universities across Florida and Texas are forced to shudder their DEI offices, higher education leaders in other states whose lawmakers threaten to propose similar legislation are voicing their opposition—before it becomes too late.
While the GOP-led movement to disband DEI offices has caught fire across the country, school donations in 2023 suggest a rift between lawmakers' wishes and the community's.
"I don't believe in this concept of stop-and-go: You stop high school and go into college. I believe we have to hold their hands and make sure they make it," says Miami-Dade County Public Schools Superintendent Jose Dotres.
