Texas Colleges Scramble As DEI Ban Halts Key Scholarships

Texas’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bans are affecting more than a hundred college scholarships, according to a report by the Dallas Morning News. The programs are currently frozen or being modified as universities try to comply with the law.

Senate Bill 17, authored by state Sen. Brandon Creighton, targeted DEI programs at public universities by stating that institutions should not have programs designed for students of a particular gender or race.

The primary focus of SB 17 was not to affect scholarships, but the law’s broad definition of DEI has led to the suspension or modification of 131 scholarships, including 80 at Texas A&M institutions and 45 at University of Texas campuses.

“Since implementation of SB 17, Texas colleges and universities have made real progress to return their institutions to the mission of innovation and education and throughout the process, many institutions are eliminating inefficiencies and redundant expenditures — which could include programs or scholarships that have been eliminated or changed,” Creighton said in a statement.

“The law makes clear that taxpayer funds should not be spent conferring special benefits based on race, color, or ethnicity,” he added.

However, many of the affected scholarships were funded by donations rather than taxpayer money, the News noted.

Efforts to comply with SB 17 have resulted in some scholarships being reinstated after changes, such as changing the criteria from “minority” to “disadvantaged” students. Scholarships such as the Biotechnology Diversity Scholarship simply had to remove the word “diversity” from its title.

But the law has also led to the closure of many diversity departments, affecting support for non-white, immigrant, and LGBTQ students.

At the University of Texas at Dallas, three scholarships, including the Sarah Montgomery Marple-Cantrell Memorial Scholarship, aimed at supporting women in engineering, are under review. Sarah’s family was unaware of the scholarship’s status until contacted by reporters of the News. Sarah’s mother, Lynn Marple, and her sister, Kate Marple-Cantrell, emphasized the importance of maintaining the scholarship’s original intent to support women in STEM, honoring both Sarah, who died by suicide, and her father Cyrus Cantrell, a professor at the UTD.