Texas Observer Features AIM’s University of North Texas DEI Investigation
June 24, 2026
The Last Safe Haven for DEI in Texas Higher Ed? Accredited social work programs
by Miranda Williamson | June 24, 2026, 10:24 AM, CDT
On May 20, a black hearse drawn by dark horses led the march of University of Texas at Austin students, clad all in black clothes, past the Governor’s Mansion and the Texas Capitol. The mourners carried signs with the words “Academic Freedom,” “Censored University,” “Alumni Mourn Our Degrees,” and—most damningly—“UT Is Dead.” Through the glass window of the hearse, a blood-red urn and several copies of George Orwell’s 1984 were visible.
The mock funeral, staged as the UT System Board of Regents convened, protested the university’s February decision to dissolve four of its standalone humanities departments—African and African Diaspora Studies; Mexican American and Latina/o Studies; Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies; and American Studies—and consolidate them into a single entity: the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.
“This is yet another demonstration of the death by a thousand cuts of the University of Texas and its spirit of academic freedom,” Cameron J. Samuels, an organizer of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT), testified at the UT Regent’s Meeting. “The University of Texas is dead. Serving at the pleasure of our Governor, you have failed to fulfill your mission, and students mourn what once was.”
When Senate Bill 17 took effect on January 1, 2024, it shuttered every Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) office at every public university in Texas. Resource centers that had operated for decades went dark, and staff were reassigned or let go. SB 17 banned the offices, but it left the classroom alone. Teaching, coursework, and scholarly research were explicitly protected.
But that was only the first step in Texas Republicans’ brazen crusade against anything and everything “DEI.” The next legislative session, Republicans targeted academics with the passage of Senate Bill 37.