The State That’s Trying to Rein in DEI Without Becoming Florida

March 31, 2024 1 min read

Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic

Excerpt: Roughly a decade after the movement for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, began to spread in American higher education, a political backlash is here. The Chronicle of Higher Education has tallied 80 bills since 2023 that aim to restrict DEI in some way, by banning DEI offices, mandatory diversity training, faculty diversity statements, and more. Eight have already become law, including in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, North Dakota, and Utah. The worst of these laws violate academic independence and free speech by attempting to forbid certain ideas in the classroom.

Utah’s Equal Opportunities Initiatives, or H.B. 261, which was signed into law in January, is more promising. It attempts to end the excessive and at times coercive focus on identity in higher education while also trying to protect academic freedom with carve-outs for research and course teaching.

Click here for link to full article

Leave a comment


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

Commentary: The Next President Should…

November 05, 2024 1 min read

Chance Layton
National Association of Scholars

Excerpt: Today, many Americans are heading to the polls to vote for our next President and administration. We Americans will also decide which party will control both houses of Congress. There have been several successes over the last few years, thanks primarily to the actions of courts and state legislatures. Much more is to be done to reform higher education so that it better serves Americans. The National Association of Scholars has spent considerable time thinking about the various reforms we’d like to see.
Read More
Commentary: Free Speech was always a loser in this election

November 05, 2024 1 min read 1 Comment

Brad Polumbo
Washington Examiner

Excerpt: Voters are fortunate to have seen a decisive presidential winner early Wednesday morning. But, tragically, there was always going to be one clear loser of the November presidential contest: the First Amendment.

Why? Well, in Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, both mainstream political parties ran candidates who, in different ways, have made their contempt for free speech clear over the years.
Read More
FIRE, ACLU: Pa. Public Campuses Must Allow Election Speech

November 04, 2024 1 min read

Ryan Quinn
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Two free expression advocacy groups say they’ve sent letters to Pennsylvania public colleges and universities “urging them to protect students’ expressive rights leading up to election day,” according to a news release sent Friday.

The groups are the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.
Read More