CV NEWS FEED // State Rep. Brian Harrison, R-TX, penned a letter to the state House Speaker encouraging him to make ending all Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives at Texas universities a legislative priority.
Among 12 other policy points, the lawmaker implored House Speaker Dade Phelan, R-TX, to pass a bill “banning all race-based admissions, employment, and contracting practices in public universities, private universities that accept federal money, and all government entities.”
“America is at a crossroads, the next generation is literally on the line, and bold leadership from Texas has never been more necessary,” Harrison emphasized in the January 3 letter.
The following day, Jordan Boyd of The Federalist reported that many higher education institutions throughout Texas are continuing to promote DEI – despite a state law that went into effect at the year’s onset “bar[ring] universities from pushing [DEI] on Lone Star State campuses.”
“By superficially changing the names of DEI offices and positions but substantially retaining the racist ideology driving DEI, these universities violate the new law,” Boyd explained.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB 17 into law last June. As Boyd reported, the law
prohibit[s] academic institutions from using the DEI umbrella to circumvent antidiscrimination laws and hire someone based on their sex, race, or ethnicity or require faculty applicants to submit a “diversity statement.”
The statute also bars universities from promoting “preferential treatment of any particular group” and conducting trainings emphasizing “race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation” unless otherwise approved.
Harrison wrote: “We’ve got to make sure that the law that we passed, is enforced properly and universities must be stopped.”
“Quite frankly, I think we need to go further,” he added.
Heritage Foundation Education Policy Senior Research Fellow Jay Greene explained that even after last week’s resignation of disgraced Harvard ex-president Claudine Gay, DEI still continues to permeate the educational landscape of the nation’s oldest university.
“[T]he use of DEI as a departure from academic merit and as a weapon for organizational combat is not eliminated with Gay’s departure,” Greene wrote in The Daily Signal Friday. “The DEI bureaucracy that she helped build and use for her ascent remains intact at Harvard and throughout higher education.”
Again from Greene:
[Gay’s] plagiarism charges were more than sufficient reason for her removal as president, but the fact that she remains as a Harvard professor does not resolve the lowering of research standards that her misconduct represents. In addition, Harvard’s willingness to keep Gay as president until the instances of plagiarism became too numerous raises concerns about the double standards with which Harvard and other universities enforce their rules.
“They would have sanctioned a student immediately—and for far less,” Greene pointed out.
>> GAY OUT AT HARVARD FOLLOWING PLAGIARISM SCANDAL <<
In addition to ending DEI, Harrison laid out a dozen other policy priorities in his letter.
These included, among others, passing a strengthened border security package, banning COVID vaccine mandates for the state’s university students, “establishing a path” to getting rid of Texas’ property taxes, and officially defining the term “woman” in state statute.
This is not the first time Harrison has taken a bold public stance on cultural matters since winning a special election to the Texas House in 2021.
Last summer, he played a pivotal role in helping his state become one of the few in the country to break from the controversial American Library Association (ALA).
The ALA had by then embraced several far-left policies – including the defense of a number of sexually explicit LGBTQ books marketed toward minors.
CatholicVote then reported that Harrison
had asked the Texas State Library and Archives Commission “[in July] to cut ties after electing a radical socialist and self-described ‘Marxist lesbian’ as President.”
The lawmaker referred to new ALA President Emily Drabinski, who upon her election tweeted that she believes “collective power is possible to build and can be wielded for a better world.” She later deleted the post.
In what was hailed as a major victory for the parental rights movement, Commission Chairwoman Martha Wong approved Harrison’s request and dropped its association with the ALA.
Harrison called the decision a “win for all Texans.”
“Texas should be leading the fight against dangerous Marxist ideology – not subsidizing it with my constituents’ hard earned tax dollars,” he said at the time.
Again from CatholicVote’s previous reporting:
Harrison served in the Presidential administrations of both George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Under Trump, Harrison served as the Chief of Staff of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
