Bill aims to deter diversity, equity and inclusion pledges in hiring, enrollment
TOPEKA — A Kansas House committee plans to move ahead Wednesday with a bill exposing public universities, community colleges and technical colleges to $100,000 administrative penalties and expensive lawsuits for compelling students or employees to pledge allegiance to diversity, equity and inclusion doctrine.
Conservative politicians and organizations have campaigned in Kansas and other states against higher education institutions committed to use of so-called DEI policies in recruiting faculty and students of color. Opponents of DEI view these strategies as discriminatory, violations of free speech and an improper use of tax dollars. DEI supporters said the policies were a response to exclusionary practices that for decades repelled communities of color from university campuses.
Salina Rep. Steven Howe, the Republican chairman of the House Higher Education Budget Committee, said public Kansas colleges and universities with DEI programs shouldn’t be allowed to mandate someone make or sign a DEI statement as a condition of employment or enrollment. His reform bill would carve out an exemption for college and university staff directly engaged in DEI activities.
“There’s a strong majority — not a supermajority — a strong majority of legislators that agree that these DEI statements can too easily function as ideological litmus tests that threaten employment or advancement for faculty that may hold dissenting views,” Howe said.
DEI: Round 2
Howe introduced House Bill 2460 a year ago and conducted a public committee hearing on the legislation in January. It followed passage during the 2023 legislative session of a budget directive that Kansas Board of Regents universities stop asking job applicants to talk about personal experiences with diversity, equity and inclusion. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the proviso and the House fell five votes short of overriding her.
Howe said he would ask his House committee to work through amendments to the bill before determining whether support existed to send it to the full House. Under the current version, DEI mandates wouldn’t apply to private colleges or universities. Some of these church-affiliated private colleges, including Kansas Wesleyan University in Salina, operate DEI programs.
Rep. Brett Fairchild, R-St. John, said he was supportive of the DEI legislation, but was skeptical votes existing in the House and Senate to override another Kelly veto.
“However, I don’t think that’s a reason not to bring it up on the floor of the House and Senate,” Fairchild said. “It’s an issue that deserves to be discussed, debated. Put everybody on record.”
Rep. Brandon Woodard, a Lenexa Democrat, said he wouldn’t vote for this kind of legislation until Kansas lawmakers modernized the Kansas Act Against Discrimination to extend protections to members of the LGBTQ+ community.
He said it was worrisome Attorney General Kris Kobach would be authorized by the bill to file lawsuits alleging violation of DEI statute. The bill would allow individuals asserting harm from DEI policies to file civil suits. The statute itself also could be challenged in court by critics of such a law.
‘Little excessive’
Democratic Rep. Mike Amyx of Lawrence said he was struggling with provisions of the bill authorizing $100,000 fines for every verified infraction. The cash from payment of fines would be redirected to a higher education institution that hadn’t violated the mandate for at least two years.
“We’re considering fining the universities? The same universities that we fund? It’s kind of like taking money out of one pocket and putting it into the other pocket,” Amyx said.
Rep. Clarke Sanders, R-Salina, said he was concerned with the “little excessive” amount of a fine. He pointed to lack of clear definitions in the bill as to what DEI activities could be problematic for a college or university. A legislative audit indicated the six state universities devoted $9 million annually in public funding to DEI, which could include assistance for veterans to aid for minority students or individuals with disabilities.
Administrative fines were the central avenue to get the attention of college and university administrators stepping out of bounds, said Rep. Barb Wasinger, a Hays Republican.
“The only power the Legislature has over anything is money,” she said. “It is our responsibility to take care of the budget and manage the taxpayers’ money.”
Learning curve
Howe said that when appointed chairman of the House’s higher education committee he set about studying the topic from policy and budget perspectives. It didn’t take long, he said, to discover DEI was causing a stir on and off college campuses. He concluded public universities in Kansas were requiring statements on diversity, equity, inclusion and social justice as a condition of employment for faculty positions.
He said that more than one year later some job postings at state universities in Kansas included requests for DEI statements.
“Requiring statements or an adherence to a particular ideology as a condition of admissions, employment, reappointment or promotion may violate the constitutional rights of our citizens, stifles freedom of speech, curtails academic freedom and can limit intellectual diversity, and diversity of thought on our campuses,” Howe said.
Howe said he worked with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has gone to court to challenge alleged university infractions of First Amendment rights, to draft HB 2460. He said it wasn’t easy to be a champion of DEI reform, because the issue stirred emotions and generated misunderstandings.
He said an editorial in the Wichita Eagle and a more recent opinion piece in the Kansas Reflector framed his advocacy in hurtful ways. He said a guest column in the Reflector suggested he picked up threads of the bill in January to coincide with observance of Black History Month in February.
“I take issue with that characterization,” Howe said. “Not only is it patently false, it gets into innuendo that I have a bias against people that are different from me. That’s not true. The bill was introduced in March of 2023. It has nothing to do with Black History Month. I think words matter and we have to be aware of how words impact others.”
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.
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