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2024-04-03 -Land of the Free

Texas university clears DEI offices, fires employees in light of new state law: report

[FoxNews] The Texas Senate Committee on Education is expected to hold a hearing in May probing university officials on how they are ensuring compliance with state law banning DEI.

What odds what they discover instead is how very hard the university is trying to work around the new law?

The University of Texas at Austin fired dozens of employees who worked in their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to comply with a new state law, according to a report.

University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell announced Tuesday the school’s Division of Campus and Community Engagement is being dissolved and its programs and funding transferred to other divisions.

The announcement comes as the university works to comply with a new Texas law that came into effect Jan. 1, which effectively dissolved DEI institutions at public colleges and universities throughout the state.

The Austin American-Statesman reported that a person with knowledge about the situation said 60 positions that were related to DEI work were eliminated at UT-Austin.

The law mandates that all governing boards of public colleges and universities ensure that their institutions prohibit the establishment and maintenance of a DEI office and the issue of "DEI Statements." In addition, hiring practices and training are no longer able to use DEI statements.

"I recognize that strong feelings have surrounded SB 17 from the beginning and will shape many Longhorns’ perceptions of these measures," Hartzell wrote in reference to the new law. "It is also important that this continues to be a welcoming, supportive community for all."

In the message, Hartzell said student-facing jobs would remain throughout the rest of the semester and that laid-off employees could apply for other positions at the university.

So they’ll still be on the payroll AND they’ll be angry? Interesting times, of a certainty.

The firings came after state Sen. Brandon Creighton, R., outlined expectations on how universities will comply with the state law. He wrote a letter expressing the serious nature of the bill, saying that the measure "mandates a fundamental shift in the operation of our higher education institutions." He added that universities are expected to facilitate a "merit-based environment."

Furthermore, he explained that the Texas Senate Committee on Education is expected to hold a hearing in May, probing chancellors and "general counselors" of higher education institutions to show how their universities are complying with the law. If universities fail to comply with the state law, they could lose funding, Creighton warned.

Among 5 specific questions on compliance, university spokespeople are expected to explain, "How has your institution ensured that there are no DEI offices or officers on campus, or no individuals or organizations performing the duties of a DEI office or officer?"

Cultural graduations were another casualty of the effect of the law, prompting outrage from some students.

When the university’s Multicultural Engagement Center (MEC) was closed in compliance with the state’s law, Black Graduation, Latinx Graduation, and GraduAsian ceremonies were impacted as a result.

Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R-Texas, introduced a bill to freeze federal funding to colleges and universities that force students to sign or make statements on DEI.

The University of Florida fired all its DEI employees in compliance with state law last week.

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Posted by Skidmark 2024-04-03 00:00|| || Front Page|| [232 views ] Top

#1 Alleged Financial Benefits of Diversity Vanish Under Scrutiny, Study Shows

Posted by Skidmark 2024-04-03 04:44|| 2024-04-03 04:44|| Front Page Top

#2 Cultural graduations were another casualty of the effect of the law, prompting outrage from some students.
When the university’s Multicultural Engagement Center (MEC) was closed in compliance with the state’s law, Black Graduation, Latinx Graduation, and GraduAsian ceremonies were impacted as a result.

Dems LOVE segregation

Posted by Frank G 2024-04-03 05:55|| 2024-04-03 05:55|| Front Page Top

#3 Sanity.

Posted by Tom 2024-04-03 13:14|| 2024-04-03 13:14|| Front Page Top

#4 Will they now stop hounding this professor?

UT Austin Administrators Tried to Punish Professor over Anti-DEI Crusade. He’s Fighting Back.

University of Texas at Austin finance professor Richard Lowery has annoyed the university’s administration by publicly criticizing its embrace of diversity, equity, and inclusion and suggesting that administrators exploit their positions for their children’s admission.

Lowery’s crusade did not go unnoticed: Several university administrators — and the university president, Jay Hartzell — responded with a “campaign to silence” the professor, which included threatening his job, salary, professional affiliations, and research opportunities, according to a lawsuit Lowery filed against the administrators.

Lowery embraces the fact that his views are unpopular on campus. His bio on his now-private Twitter account reads: “All opinions are mine and almost certainly diametrically opposed to those of my employer.”

Lowery became unpopular on campus by criticizing the UT Austin’s sprawling DEI bureaucracy, which costs $13 million annually in salaries alone. The UT Austin “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan” requires that “all members of faculty search committees must participate in diverse hiring training” and invests $3 million over four years to support “recruitment and hiring of faculty contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

The focus on DEI is exemplified by a UT Austin research program that offers a voluntary four-week study for white four- and five-year-old children and their white caregivers to learn about “anti-Black racism.” Lowery criticized the project in an op-ed for the College Fix, writing, “Imagine if such training were to be focused only on black preschool-aged children, a subset the researchers deemed deficient in patriotism.”

In response to Lowery’s public criticism of the university, Hartzell and several senior administrators pressured his supervisor at the Salem Center — a research center at the business school of UT Austin — to discipline him, according to the lawsuit. (While he likely couldn’t be fired from his tenured position as a professor, Lowery’s role at the Salem Center came with a $20,000-a-year stipend and is renewed annually.)

Posted by trailing wife 2024-04-03 16:35|| 2024-04-03 16:35|| Front Page Top

#5 Latinx Graduation(!) *Spit* If you can't respect their preferences for Latino/Latina then use Hispanic you blind, culturally insensitive troll.

Posted by magpie 2024-04-03 17:54|| 2024-04-03 17:54|| Front Page Top

#6 But Hispanic ignores the Brazilians, magpie, who descend from Portugal, not Spain. ;-)

Linguistically, of course, the masculine ending of Latino includes Latin females as well. Only the feminine Latina is exclusive to that s3x. But Heaven forbid the self-righteous who insist on changing the entire language to meet their particular peeves should actually learn something about the subject.

Posted by trailing wife 2024-04-03 21:06|| 2024-04-03 21:06|| Front Page Top

#7 Gotta love Texas!

Posted by CrazyFool in Texas 2024-04-03 21:20|| 2024-04-03 21:20|| Front Page Top

#8 Does that make the non Hispanics "Portagex?"

Posted by M. Murcek 2024-04-03 22:44|| 2024-04-03 22:44|| Front Page Top

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