Rep. Carl Tepper, who represents the Lubbock area, has introduced HB 1006 that prohibits higher education from funding and supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion offices on the college or university campus.
“We call it division, inequity and indoctrination,” Tepper, a first-term state rep, told NBC News affiliate KXAN.
Tepper is a graduate of Texas Tech University, located in Lubbock, where the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion celebrates and enforces “inclusive communities” on a campus of 40,300 students.
Much like colleges campuses and classrooms, which have been liberal for generations, the “inclusive” community promised by a DEI program goes in one direction: far, far to the left. So pro-life students and College Republicans, for example, would have to look hard to see their beliefs represented in Texas Tech’s Inclusive Language Terminology or the school’s Inclusive Election Support Resources.
According to a related story by Fox 34, Texas Tech is already backing away from its DEI initiatives after the university was busted by a Wall Street Journal op-ed. That column said two prospective hires in the biology department were rejected because one could not explain the difference between “equity” and “equality.”
"Equality means getting the same, equity means getting what is fair," according to "Inclusive Language" website.
A second candidate called a professor a “he” and was not hired either, the Fox 34 story noted.
The biology department did hire one candidate who made a “land acknowledgement,” which refers to Native Americans, during the interview.
In a statement, Texas Tech claimed it was unaware of the “inclusion statement” required by the biology department.
'They foster resentment and bitterness'
Campus Reform, a watchdog group that keeps a watch on higher ed, is following the DEI fight across the country.
Just this week, a Campus Reform story reports New Jersey legislators, mostly Democrats, are demanding answers after DEI budgets skyrocketed on college and university campuses. The budget at Rutgers for the senior vice president of University Equity and Inclusion jumped 40%, from $2.8 million to $4 million, in just one year. Salaries alone jumped from $668,000 to $1.5 million, a 135% increase.
Campus Reform fellow Nicholas Giordano, who is also a political science professor, tells AFN he was grateful to see Texas Tech back away from using DEI in its hiring practices. Higher education is about seeking truth, he says, but the philosophy behind DEI demands and allows only one accepted view.
"That is why we are starting to see some colleges, in a hopeful sign," he says, "pushing back against the DEI movement."
In a related op-ed for The New York Post, Giordano summarized the danger of DEI programs:
Their objectives are intellectually shallow and ideologically driven as they mischaracterize America and our history. Even worse, they foster resentment and bitterness towards our country, which has provided so much opportunity despite our past sins.
Cathie Adams, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, tells AFN she is pleased Rep. Tepper is not being fooled by DEI and its deceptive phrases.
“It's not about diversity. It's about division,” she says. “It's not about equity. It's about inequity. And it's not about inclusion. It's about indoctrination.”
Editor's Note: This story has been updated with comments from Nicholas Giordano.
