Despite state prohibitions on DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) offices and programs in public higher education, the University of Texas at Austin is continuing to teach robust offerings in its African & African Diaspora Studies program that engage issues of race, power, identity, and social justice.
At UT, the Department of African & African Diaspora Studies (AADS) offers over 30 courses per academic year, including classes like AFR 320C: Power/Place — Making Texas History, which frames sites across the Texas landscape as windows into race, power, and social narrative.
Founded in 2010, the AADS program, in 2014 became the first Black Studies department in the southern U.S. to grant PhDs—and as of 2023 had granted 29 doctorates. Graduate students in the program participate in interdisciplinary study and research across history, literature, sociology, political science, and cultural theory.
Although state law (SB 17 passed in 2023) bans new DEI offices, training, or programming in public higher ed, the responses of UT and other universities are varied. UT system leaders last year disclosed to state lawmakers that they eliminated 300 full- or part-time jobs and more than 600 DEI-related programs across UT’s campuses to comply with the law. Yet the AADS curriculum remains intact, as critical race studies and Black studies courses often are treated as academic content rather than administrative DEI functions.
One of UT’s professors in the AADS, Dr. Lyndon Gill, will be speaking at the Austin Seminary on November 6. According to the seminary, “In his lecture, Dr. Gill will draw lessons from the Caribbean staple food of ‘hill rice’ and kitchen-table stories same-sex desiring Spiritual Baptists tell about their journey to the faith, highlighting the grains of spiritual truths gathered along the way.”
The lecture adds more perspective to UT’s AADS course offerings which stray off into other intersectional topics. One such course is AFR 315Q: Back Queer Art Worlds, which “[p]rovides an introduction to various artists and intellectuals of the black queer diaspora, as well as an examination of the viability of black queer aesthetic practice as a form of theorizing.”
While UT continues to operate its Black studies offerings under academic rubric, Texas A&M has become a flashpoint in Texas’s DEI crackdown.
In 2023, A&M attempted to hire Kathleen McElroy, a prominent journalism professor with a record in diversity scholarship. The hire was derailed after objections over her previous work in DEI, and her contract was restructured downward—first from a tenured position to a shorter term, then to a one-year appointment. She declined the offer and remained on faculty at UT. In August 2023, Texas A&M agreed to pay McElroy $1 million in settlement and issued an apology, admitting “mistakes were made during the hiring process.”
That scandal triggered fall out over the last two years. Two presidents of A&M who advocated for DEI were subsequently terminated. The most recent termination came after a confrontation between two students with A&M president Mark Welsh went viral because Welsh defended a course that taught DEI principles to future educators. Welsh resigned shortly thereafter.
After Welsh resigned, the A&M board of regents again created more turmoil when it appointed a DEI advocate as president of Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
The cases of UT and A&M reflect deeper questions about how Texas’s law will be enforced, where lines between academic inquiry and prohibited DEI function lie, and how religious and Christian institutions navigate the tensions.
At A&M, the backlash to McElroy and the later classroom controversy show how political pressure can overcome the influence of DEI within Texas universities. It also highlights that ultimately decisions about hiring, course content, etc. are political in nature, driven by the democratic desire of citizens expressed through their elected officials.
As Texas higher education continues to be scrutinized by concerned citizens and public officials, UT’s ongoing embrace of race-theoretic courses and A&M’s continued advancement of its DEI ambitions provide a preview of potential future clashes on Texas’ campuses.
