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July 9, 2026
Texas public university won’t fund professor’s travel to DEI-forward event
Posted on July 9, 2026
By Micaiah Bilger – Assistant Editor
University of North Texas says event organizer supports deferential treatment of ‘people on the basis of race, color or ethnicity‘
The University of North Texas recently refused to fund a journalism professor’s participation in an upcoming academic conference, stating that its focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion conflicts with state law.
Tracy Everbach is the professor, and she plans to attend the Association of Education in Journalism and Mass Communication’s conference in August anyway, KTEN 10 News reports. She will be giving a presentation about a student project on “common media tropes around Indigenous Americans,” according to the report.
Recently, Everbach said the public university denied her request to cover her expenses to the event due to a 2023 state ban on funding DEI programs. She said she was surprised by the denial because she has been attending the conference for decades.
The school “determined that the university-funded membership/sponsorship violates provisions” in state Senate Bill 17, it told Everbach in an email.
These violations include “[p]romoting differential treatment of or providing special benefits to people on the basis of race, color or ethnicity,” including in hiring and policies, as well as “[h]iring or assigning an employee to perform the duties of a diversity, equity and inclusion office,” according to the university.