Kansas lawmakers join other GOP-led states in targeting DEI

Legislators speak in the Kansas House chamber

By JOHN HANNA and DAVID A. LIEB

Published March 20, 2024 Updated March 21, 2024 3:01 PM PT

TOPEKA, Kan. — Republican lawmakers in Kansas have joined their GOP counterparts in other states in trying to restrict diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives on university campuses, but the proposals they’ve advanced are written to avoid having to agree on how to define DEI.

The Kansas House on Thursday approved a bill aimed at preventing universities, community colleges or technical colleges from basing a student’s admission or an employee’s hiring or promotion on any statement or pledge about diversity, equity or inclusion. Though the bill includes those words, it also says universities cannot require a statement about “any political ideology or movement.”

The House’s 81-39 vote, mostly along party lines, came a week after the Senate approved a proposed $25-billion state budget with a provision designed to force universities to eliminate such requirements and mandatory DEI training. The provision would withhold $35.7 million from the state’s six universities until they report to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and the Republican-controlled Legislature’s leaders that they have done so.

Republicans in at least 20 states have sought to limit DEI initiatives, arguing that they are discriminatory and enforce a liberal political orthodoxy. Alabama’s governor signed into law an anti-DEI bill on Wednesday, Utah enacted a law earlier this year, and proposals in Kentucky and South Carolina advanced this week.

“Universities have chosen to embrace ideologies that discriminate against people who do not hew to their orthodoxy,” state Rep. Steve Howe, a central Kansas Republican and the chair of a committee on higher education, said during a House debate Wednesday.

The House measure now goes to the Senate. As for the anti-DEI budget provision, negotiators for the two chambers expect to discuss it as they draft the final version of the annual budget.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president and CEO of the National Assn. of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, called the Kansas proposals “mean-spirited” and said they attempt to force universities to “turn back the clock on all the progress made in the past 70 years to support students, faculty, and staff.”

“The backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and programs is rooted in ignorance and prejudice,” Granberry Russell said in an email responding to questions. “The ability to support, educate, and provide services that address the diverse needs of students should be an expectation.”

The Kansas House bill sets up a process for hearing DEI complaints, giving universities time to reverse contested actions. But it also allows the attorney general to file civil lawsuits against the universities and colleges and seek fines of up to $10,000.

A legislative audit released last month said 1.6% of the six state universities’ annual spending, or $45 million, went to DEI initiatives but noted that each university defined DEI differently. Besides initiatives traditionally seen as DEI, such as training and recruiting, they also included food pantries for poor students and services for military veterans and disabled students.

But neither Kansas measure defines DEI.

“It’s hard for me to pass a bill to punish a university for doing something that we don’t define,” Democratic state Rep. Tom Sawyer of Wichita said. “The words diversity, equity and inclusion to me, in themselves, are positive words.”

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, said his chamber’s bill creates a simple test — whether a university requires ideological statements from students, job applicants or employees — that doesn’t require everyone to agree how to define DEI.

“Everybody’s got a different definition,” Hawkins said. “To get everybody to aspire to one definition is pretty difficult.”

Similarly, state Sen. J.R. Claeys, another central Kansas Republican who wrote his chamber’s budget provision, said it simply pushes higher education officials to stop using race-based criteria in their decisions, in line with last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision ending affirmative action in university admissions.

Claeys, one of the Senate’s budget negotiators and an advisor to Republican state Atty. Gen. Kris Kobach, said threatening funding is the best way to get universities to comply.

In statehouses across the U.S., Republicans and Democrats have been pushing opposite definitions of fairness and opportunity in education and state workplaces.

Democratic lawmakers in more than a dozen states are promoting more than 30 measures this year to require greater consideration of diversity, equity and inclusion. Republican state lawmakers have countered with more 60 measures to prohibit or restrict it, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill tracking software Plural. Five of those GOP bills have won final approval.

The new Utah law prohibits government agencies, universities and K-12 schools from having diversity, equity and inclusion offices.

Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, signed legislation last week barring higher education institutions from considering statements about diversity, equity and inclusion in decisions about employment, benefits or student admissions. That legislation also specifies that any diversity programming must address both “cultural and intellectual diversity.”

Republican lawmakers in Idaho and Wisconsin last week passed bills barring higher education institutions from conditioning employment and admission decisions on diversity statements.

In Wisconsin, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is expected to veto his state’s legislation. In Kansas, Kelly hasn’t said what she would do if either GOP proposal passed, but she vetoed an anti-DEI provision included in budget legislation last year.

The measure approved Wednesday by Alabama lawmakers would prohibit state agencies, universities and K-12 school systems from sponsoring DEI programs. It also would prohibit them from forcing students or employees to adhere to “a divisive concept,” a term that covers concepts such as white privilege, systemic discrimination and the idea that merit-based systems can be “racist or sexist.”

The new Alabama law, which takes effect Oct. 1, would prohibit universities, K-12 school systems and state agencies from sponsoring DEI programs, defined under the bill as classes, training, programs and events in which attendance is based on a person’s race, sex, gender identity, ethnicity, national origin or sexual orientation.

Legislation that passed the Kentucky House this week includes similar language in its definition of “discriminatory” concepts that state universities would be barred from using in training programs or course requirements.

In the Kansas House, the higher education committee wrestled with drafting a definition. Republican Rep. Clark Sanders, another central Kansas Republican, initially expressed misgivings about the lack of one but later relented.

“I may not be able to give you an explanation or a definition, but I’d know it when I saw it,” he said.

Hanna and Lieb write for the Associated Press. Hanna reported from Topeka, Lieb from Jefferson City, Mo.