Behind the lines of Texas A&M's diversity war
COLLEGE STATION, Tex. - The July email to Texas A&M University instructors caught many by surprise.
The university would drop a required lesson on "respect & inclusion" from a semesterlong program open to all first-year students, according to the email. This was necessary, an official wrote, in light of a new state law that bans, in part, mandatory diversity training. In its place, A&M would add a lesson on mental health.
The email from the university's first-year experience office was met with faculty pushback. Within hours, A&M walked back its directive; a vice provost called it "premature" as officials sought more legal guidance about the law. Weeks later, A&M sent another message, confirming that, after all, the university would nix the lesson as a requirement for the curriculum known as "Hullabaloo U."
Confusion over the fate of a single lesson reflects broader anxiety among many faculty and students about what the new Texas law banning activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion - commonly abbreviated as DEI - will mean for what is taught, who is hired and how universities support students. The closure of campus DEI offices in the state, a central feature of the measure, is already underway. At least one school has also shuttered an LGBTQ resource center.
And despite assurance that the restrictions won't infringe on the classroom, some faculty say they remain concerned about what may be on the horizon. Those fears are particularly acute at A&M, where the hiring of a new journalism director went off the rails this summer amid political concerns about her past work on diversity issues.
"People are fumbling and afraid about what it means for their classes," said Tracy Hammond, speaker of the Faculty Senate. "Potentially, the students are going to lose out. That's my biggest fear."
The tensions in Texas come as the tools many colleges have historically used to improve diversity are increasingly verboten. The Supreme Court this summer struck down race-based affirmative action, and lawmakers in several states such as Florida are targeting programs and practices related to DEI. Across college campuses, professors are hearing the message that work related to diversity could invite political or legal backlash.
"What happens in a state like Texas impacts schools all around the country, even if indirectly," said Jeremy Young, a program director at PEN America, a nonprofit group that advocates free expression. "It creates a climate of fear, even in states that aren't interested in passing laws like this."
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'Part of A&M died'
The dismantling of DEI now underway at Texas A&M presents a sharp contrast from 2½ years ago when the regents who oversee the university pledged it would be "a leader" in "advancing opportunities for all Texans."
Like many universities, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020 prompted A&M to do some soul-searching about its own traditions. Who was being left out, the university asked? How might the experiences of Black students, who make up just 3 percent of the student body, differ from those of their White counterparts? And what could A&M do to recruit more diverse faculty?
In a pledge of its commitment to these issues, the university's Board of Regents agreed to spend $24.75 million to "enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion."
Today, however, several DEI-related programs have either been shut down or are being phased out. The diversity office, which must be shuttered by Jan. 1 in accordance with the new law, closed Friday. A cabinet-level diversity position has been eliminated. A recruitment program designed to attract early-career faculty with a demonstrated scholarly focus on DEI won't continue after this fall.
This much is known. But university officials say that they are still awaiting legal guidance on which other initiatives will need to be scrapped as a result of the new law that began as Senate Bill 17. The university system's lawyers are conducting an audit of all activities that might run afoul of the restrictions. (In response to a public records request from The Washington Post, the campus said Tuesday it would withhold records of its response to the audit, citing an exemption for "confidential information.")
Senate Bill 17 specifically exempts research and teaching, but professors engaged in diversity-related scholarship say they are particularly concerned. Many people at the university say they fear they'll be politically targeted for even talking about diversity issues. More than 40 people involved in diversity work at Texas A&M either did not respond to interview requests from The Post, declined to speak, or would only talk on background.
There is a pervasive sense that outside influence - either from politicians or conservative alums - is interfering with the work of the university and threatening academic freedom. Those fears were heightened in July, when the Texas Tribune reported that Kathleen McElroy, a tenured professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, had turned down an offer to lead A&M's journalism program. The university, which had initially offered McElroy a tenured role - contingent upon the regents' approval - had reduced its offer to a one-year contract amid a conservative backlash. McElroy, an African American alum of A&M and a former New York Times editor, said she was told that "DEI hysteria" had complicated her appointment.
Also in July, the Tribune reported that the university had investigated and placed on leave Joy Alonzo, a clinical assistant professor of pharmacy, after someone complained that Alonzo had criticized the state's lieutenant governor during a lecture about opioids. Alonzo's leave, which lasted less than two weeks, was lifted in March, following a university investigation that "did not substantiate" that she had made "unprofessional or inappropriate comments."
Coming on the heels of the McElroy debacle, the Alonzo revelations have felt like a gut punch to many faculty. At a recent Faculty Senate meeting, the speaker led her colleagues in "a moment of silence." "For most of us," Hammond told the group, "it feels like part of A&M died this month, and I think we need to properly mourn."
New details about the McElroy case, revealed through now-public text messages that were sent between university officials, strike an ugly contrast with Texas A&M's oft-cited core values of respect and integrity. Katherine Banks, who abruptly retired as president in the fallout of the controversy, didn't appreciate McElroy going public as she did. In a text message to a colleague, Banks said McElroy was an "awful person to go to the press before us." Banks added, "Just think if she had accepted!!! Ugh."
Texas A&M has agreed to pay McElroy $1 million as part of a legal settlement. Reeling from controversy, the university swiftly tapped as interim president Mark A. Welsh III, a retired four-star Air Force general who most recently served as dean of the university's Bush School of Government and Public Service.
Citing the university's internal review of the McElroy affair, Welsh told The Post that the case was about a flawed hiring process - not race. But Welsh knows what a lot of people think: "This was a Black professor who Texas A&M decided they didn't want."
"I don't think that's the full context of it," Welsh said, "but I think that's the message people heard."
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A 'weaponized' acronym
By now, Welsh is used to questions that he says he can't answer. Chief among them is how the university will operate under the state's new DEI restrictions. Welsh has the same unsatisfying response: He is awaiting legal guidance.
While Welsh said he would not have supported SB 17 - "I don't believe it's beneficial to where we are trying to go long-range as a society" - he said that a lot of what the university does to promote diversity won't change. A&M should have no trouble complying with the law's prohibition of racial preferences in hiring or promotion, he said. And the law exempts recruitment, so universities can still market themselves to underrepresented minorities and first-generation students.
"I think the law was intended to just make sure that no particular group got the benefit of the doubt or preferential treatment from any other group," Welsh said. "And we can do that. That just kind of makes common sense anyway."
On the other hand, the law might force the university to make some interesting programmatic choices. Could A&M have a mentoring program that was exclusively for women in science or engineering? Possibly, Welsh said, "as long as it's open to men who want to learn about women in faculty."
DEI programs vary across higher education, but the general aim is to promote diversity across a broad set of categories, including race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and physical ability. A DEI office might administer surveys to assess how different groups of people feel about a university. At A&M, the DEI office helped the university to gain recognition as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, a federal designation that requires the undergraduate student body to be at least 25 percent Hispanic and opens the door to more grants.
Critics, however, say that DEI offices amount to enforcers of ideological conformity, mandating that students and employees embrace a set of beliefs about systemic racism, among other things. Welsh said it is unfortunate that "We've essentially weaponized an acronym."
The new Texas law has similarities with one recently passed in Florida, where public colleges are prohibited from spending state or federal money on DEI efforts.
In recent months, faculty at Texas A&M say they've observed what looks like the quiet erasure of anything diversity-related. A webpage for the university's Department of Multicultural Services has been altered, removing from its description the words "belonging" and "inclusive," archived pages show. In March, without explanation, the department postponed a conference on race.
Department employees did not respond to interview requests.
"This is how the censorship happens," said Young, the PEN America program director. "It is very rarely enforced directly as a violation of the law. It's everyone chasing their own tails, afraid that they might come into conflict with the law."
Annie McGowan, who ran A&M's office for diversity from 2020 until its recent closure, said she has seen firsthand the university's efforts to censor politically sensitive content. In February, Texas A&M's marketing and communications division informed McGowan that it had taken down a diversity office webpage that contained a glossary of DEI-related terms. The list included the term "Christian privilege," which had captured the attention of Campus Reform, a conservative watchdog website.
In a statement provided to The Post, a Texas A&M spokesperson acknowledged the removal. "Under the direction of the former president," the statement said, "there was a small-scale effort to remove some information, including a glossary of DEI terms."
In recent weeks, McGowan wound down the diversity office. With the help of student workers, she moved her belongings from the administration building, where the president and other top campus officials work, to the business school, where McGowan remains a professor. She said she will continue to mentor students who need it.
"I don't need an official title to do that," McGowan said.
Of the 10 people who worked with McGowan, eight have found new positions or returned to faculty roles at A&M. Two have left for other universities, McGowan said.
"I work for Texas A&M University," she said, "and they're telling me that they don't want this [DEI] work to be done."
Idia Thurston, who until recently was an associate professor of psychology and public health at A&M, said she heard the same message from the university; so, she left.
Thurston joined the faculty at A&M in 2019. She was eager to be a part of a research cluster that brought together psychology faculty whose work is related to diversity. Over time, however, Thurston saw diversity-related programs die on the vine, including one she helped to develop that provided training on implicit bias in promotion and retention. The program was phased out last November, officials confirmed.
As the political rhetoric against DEI intensified in Texas over the past year, Thurston said she grew concerned that she might be restricted in her scholarship, which focuses in part on racial inequities and disparities in health care. The professor said she isn't convinced that crackdowns on diversity research won't happen, despite the law's exemptions for that activity.
On Aug. 21, Thurston began in her new role as a professor and associate director of the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research at Northeastern University, a private institution in Boston. Researchers like herself won't stay at A&M, she said. "We just won't," Thurston said. "It's not worth it."
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Steeped in tradition
Texas A&M did not open its doors to Black students and women until 1963. Six decades later, the university is wrestling with how best to support those it once excluded. For Amanda Ratliff, an African American student, the answer is complicated. Ratliff is a die-hard Aggie: "I'm not Black; I'm maroon," she said on a recent afternoon, while hanging out in the student center. At the same time, Ratliff said, many Black students feel alienated from the university's distinctive traditions.
The bright white uniforms of yell leaders, who are elected by the students and enjoy a vaunted status on campus, can feel reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, Ratliff said. Activities like "pond hopping," which is slang for taking a dip in a university fountain, can seem like the province of the White majority, she said. (Ratliff still partook in the tradition.) And forget about rushing a mostly White sorority, she said, where "the minority is the brunette."
Ratliff, who is majoring in electronic systems engineering technology, said that having spaces and programs for underrepresented minorities has been critical to her A&M experience. Students didn't tend to congregate in the now-defunct diversity office, Ratliff said, but its existence had sent a signal that the university cared about people like her. The division of multicultural services, which does not appear threatened by the new law, is a critical refuge for minority students, she added.
"I'm not escaping from White people by having DEI offices," she said. Rather, Ratliff said, she is looking for a place where she can "be myself fully, 100 percent without fear of judgment."
Some opponents of DEI argue that the programs, while widely embraced in higher education, haven't delivered tangible results. That's one area in which Leonard Bright, a professor of public administration at Texas A&M, finds agreement with the naysayers. Bright, who is African American, said he deplores much of the anti-DEI political rhetoric. At the same time, he said DEI programs have been used as a "smokescreen" for administrators, who really aren't doing much about racial inequities on their campuses.
Bright joined A&M's faculty in 2011. Over the years, he said, he has clashed with some White colleagues who have made him feel less than accepted as a part of the team. He has fought - successfully - for pay equity increases. He is actively suing the university for employment discrimination in relation to a promotion dispute.
But Bright isn't leaving, he told The Post during a recent interview in his office.
"Why am I here?" Bright said. "This is a great university. They don't get to keep this to themselves. No one gets to keep this. This is a public institution."
Texas A&M is an environment "that's hostile to me," he said. "But I've been tried and true. I've been through this fire. And I am going to stay here. I am going to do what I can to be a part of a real change, not superficial."
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