“It Was Mostly Cosmetic”: Missouri Professor Reveals How DEI Survives State Bans
September 14, 2026
Last year, Missouri banned DEI initiatives at its public universities. However, an Accuracy in Media investigation revealed that DEI ideology remains in university classrooms.
Wayne Brekhus, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at the University of Missouri, was recorded speaking with an AIM investigator about the status of DEI on campus.
When asked about equity, inclusion and DEI-related courses at the university, Brekhus made clear the ideology remains alive in both teaching and research.
“I think we have a lot of awesome courses. And lots of us do, you know, DEI type of research.”
He continued:
“Lots of us do DEI types of research and things like that. I do things with identities and inequalities and used to do a lot of LGBTQ research and things like that.”
When the investigator asked whether anti-racism was also a focus, Brekhus responded:
“Yeah, yeah … that’s a thing too. And you’ll get that in the courses as well.”
Missouri lawmakers acted against DEI, but the state’s restrictions leave a gaping loophole: higher education.
Brekhus acknowledged exactly that.
“So it’s been really tough on research. But so far they haven’t hit the curriculum.”
He also described how institutions elsewhere have responded to DEI restrictions—not necessarily by eliminating DEI, but by changing how it is labeled and organized.
“Usually what places did is, like, they changed the name or they put them under a different umbrella to make it less visible that it was DEI or things like that.”
Brekhus went even further, describing what he called “clever ways” institutions have used to preserve DEI operations:
“When they found clever ways to, like, continue to have DEI centers but not call them that. It was mostly cosmetic.”
That is precisely the problem with weak, toothless DEI bans.
Missouri students should not be forced to sit through divisive identity politics simply to earn a degree from a taxpayer-funded university.
Other states are moving toward stronger restrictions. Kansas and North Carolina have recently strengthened their approaches to DEI, including restrictions aimed at preventing identity politics from simply migrating into other areas of public institutions.
Missouri lawmakers now have a choice: leave a loophole big enough for DEI to survive–or close it.
Visit SaveMissouriStudents.com to send one email to the relevant Missouri officials and demand action.