When we talk about education and the Legislature, the focus often falls on K-12 schools.
But higher education is also a huge topic that often comes up under the Pink Dome, and this session is expected to include several bills related to colleges and universities.
In Texas, more than 200 higher education-related bills alone have been introduced during the pre-filing period ahead of the 89th session.
Lily Kepner, who covers higher education for the Austin American-Statesman, said several of these bills relate to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Also called DEI, such initiatives were a big topic of conversation during the last session.
“Texas was the second state to pass an anti-DEI law, which banned DEI offices, programs, hiring and staff,” Kepner said. “In the two years since Texas passed Senate Bill 17, that anti-DEI law, ten states have passed similar legislation banning DEI at their universities. And the U.S. Congress has considered legislation that would dismantle DEI, as the bill is called, at all public institutions.”
Among the bills that have already been filed, Kepner said, is one that would block diversity requirements from external sources, such as institutions that accredit university programs, from interfering with state law.
“We’ve also seen laws to give the Board of Regents more power over who leads departments — that was a bill drafted by Sen. Mayes Middleton, who’s the vice chair of the Texas Subcommittee on Higher Education,” Kepner said.
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“We’ve seen some laws, some bills, introduced that would legislate that programs need a certain amount of interest to continue, which is the reason Texas A&M gave when it cut its LGBTQ Studies and Asian Studies program this fall after pushback from legislators. So we’ve seen some creative ways to kind of root out DEI more than Senate Bill 17 already did.”
However, Kepner said that she does not expect DEI to be the main focus when it comes to legislation on higher education this session. She expects other issues will also come up, including affordability, free speech on campus, and admissions practices.
“My instinct tells me that we’ll definitely see DEI in this session, but I don’t think it’ll be a priority in the same way that SB 17 was,” Kepner said. “SB 17 is considered to be one of the strongest bills against DEI in the country and has already done a lot of the things that Congress might, on a national level, want to do.
So I think what we’re going to see movement is in legislating undocumented students’ access to public universities. The first bill filed this session by Rep. Terri Leo-Wilson actually would require people at public universities to report if they find out that one of their students isn’t authorized to be here legally.”
Kepner also expects the cost of higher education to come up at the state house. But she expects any changes to DEI policy to be of a smaller magnitude.
“I think that legislators are going to be creative in putting pressure on these universities in different ways to comply with the spirit of SB 17, which people like [bill filer] Sen. [Brandon] Creighton have taken to mean removing diversity and anything that could relate to DEI from curriculum and courses – either through empowering the regents to put that pressure on presidents, or legislating in more creative ways, like I mentioned, with having more requirements for programs,” Kepner said.
