The DEI cuts at the University of Texas have greatly affected some of its employees. According to The Dallas Morning News, most of the people affected by the cuts were people of color or women.

DEI stands for Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion. This includes practices, policies, and programs that aim to help, support, and fight for people of color and other minorities who are usually discriminated against in schools, offices, and the public in general.

However, some people frown upon the concept of DEI as they believe that it promotes inequality and discriminates against white people. 

As DEI became more controversial, the Senate passed Senate Bill 17, which sought to eliminate DEI practices from the public university system. It passed through the legislature in 2023 and went into full effect on January 1st.

Therefore, the bill called for a total ban on DEI programs and policies and the disbandment of departments and training programs. 

The bill’s main goal is to stop the establishment of DEI offices in public universities in Texas. This means closing down the existing offices in universities across the state. Therefore, people who worked in these DEI offices and departments had to be laid off after the bill was passed. 

Other universities like Harvard have also been under fire for their DEI practices. However, those universities that are not in Texas have not had to conform to Senate Bill 17. 

Many other Republican-led states are trying to pass a similar bill, as most Republican leaders are against DEI practices and have been fighting to get rid of them for years.

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Over the years, the concept of DEI has become a serious political issue, thanks to leaders who do not approve of it. This shows that many states have moved to restrict or totally ban the implementation of DEI across several sectors.

They believe that DEI encourages discriminatory practices against white people and should no longer be allowed in certain environments like schools.

Sadly, the DEI ban has resulted in the loss of jobs in universities. The Dallas Morning News referenced documentation from the University of Texas and reported that the cuts are having a negative impact on those who lost their jobs.

76.8% of the people who lost their jobs were women or people of color. The men accounted for 23.2%, and the rest were white.

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According to the news agency, not all the public universities that faced the DEI ban had to make cuts. The report also found that 50 of the job cuts were from the University of Texas, which is located in Austin.

Sixteen people were also cut from UT Dallas. UT Southwestern, UTMB Galveston, and UT Tyler only cut one employee each from their universities.  

The report shows that most of the people who were let go due to DEI cuts were from UT Austin. Seven percent of the 50 members who were cut were women, and 73 percent of this were people of color.

This was not very surprising, as UT Austin always had the largest number of DEI employees before the law went into full effect on January 1st. 

Before the universities fully implemented the law, many people already knew that they would likely be cut. Therefore, many of them decided to quit before January 1st.

Others decided to seek alternative employment within their universities or look for new opportunities elsewhere. Some also retired some months before they were supposed to be let go.

ALSO READ: “They Don’t Work,” MIT Scraps DEI From Hiring Requirement

A legislator hearing was held on May 14th to discuss the DEI ban and its effects. James B. Milliken, the University of Texas System Chancellor, also attended this hearing and announced that 311 jobs would be removed across the university system. He also noted that this would save the university system about $25 million in revenue.

The demographics of the affected cuts were not so surprising. This is because women and people of color usually make up a higher percentage of DEI programs and departments across the country.

A general survey in 2023 found that 51% of the country’s chief diversity officers are Black. Hispanics make up 11%, 7% are Asian, and the others are white. 

As the people who got cut were women and people of color who offer a sense of diversity among the University of Texas staff members, many people are concerned about the impact of this new development.

Pauline Strong, a professor of anthropology at the university, validated these concerns, saying that it will most likely affect the university’s staff and students negatively due to a reduced sense of representation. 

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