After George Floyd was murdered at the hands of police in 2020 diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) became in vogue. But four years later the pendulum has shifted in the opposite direction in the wake of pervasive attacks.
Senior vice president and head of social impact and equity for the Cleveland Cavaliers Kevin Clayton said, diversity officer roles were “the hottest position in America” post George Floyd. But as Johnny Taylor, Society for Human Resource Management president, reflected in an interview with Axios, “The backlash is real. And I mean, in ways that I’ve actually never seen it before.”
In early June, a federal appeals court handed down a ruling that the Fearless Fund, which provides grants for Black women, was a racially discriminatory program. As ESSENCE has previously reported, this decision is representative of the anti-DEI trend where organizations working to combat longstanding historic racial biases are being targeted. For instance, in the case of Fearless Fund, data backs this disparity. In 2022, Black women-owned businesses receive less than 1% of the total amount of almost $300 billion worth of funding that is invested by venture capital firms.
Over the past two years, the anti-DEI’ers have been successful in their arguments “reframing DEI as discrimination against white people (particularly white men).” One could classify last year’s Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action as their greatest victory. In the aftermath of the high court’s ruling, “colleges and universities across the country have raced to reshape their application processes, while finding new, legal strategies to foster diversity in the student body.”
Since 2023, 85 bills have been introduced, 14 bills have been signed into law, 14 are at the final legislative approval stage, while 49 have failed to pass, been tabled or vetoed. The impacts of these news laws have already been felt.
In Florida, “the University of Florida eliminated all D.E.I.- related positions, closed the office of the chief diversity officer and halted all D.E.I. contracts with outside vendors,” cutting 13 full time positions and 15 faculty members. In addition, Florida International University and the University of North Florida also eliminated their DEI programs.
To the west in Texas, the University of Texas at Austin has already closed down the Multicultural Engagement Center, causing approximately 60 administrators to be notified that they would be out of a job. Some college campuses on Texas have even closed down centers for LGBTQ students.
Even though Florida and Texas are extreme cases, DEI attacks are also mounting in other states across the country. Using data compiled from Chronicle of Higher Education, ESSENCE presents an update to “Our State of DEI” table with the bills broken down by state and key accompanying restrictions.
