What Is DEI?

What is DEI?

The word conjures racial quotas, but in practice DEI is mostly about access, like a ramp for a disabled student or a mentor for a first-generation one. To see what the bans take away, start with where DEI came from and what it was built to fix.

Where DEI Came From and Why

DEI began as a practical response to a documented problem. For most of American history, institutions openly shut Black people, women, immigrants, disabled people, and LGBTQ people out of hiring, promotion, admission, and full participation.

Its roots are in the civil-rights era and the laws that followed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned employment discrimination. Title IX opened education to women in 1972. The Americans with Disabilities Act required accommodation for disabled people in 1990. Each law made discrimination illegal, but a law on the books does not change how a hiring committee behaves.

Closing that space between the law and real behavior is what DEI was built to do. Institutions learned that banning discrimination was not the same as ending it.

So they built systems to do the work in practice, with fairer recruitment, mentorship, accessible processes, promotion review, and support for the people the old systems had pushed out. DEI became the umbrella term for that work.

The problems it targeted were concrete. Biased hiring and promotion. Pay gaps. Almost no one from underrepresented groups in leadership. Workplace and campus climates that drove people away. Barriers for disabled people who needed an accommodation to compete on equal footing.

DEI was never a cure-all, and saying so makes the case stronger. Some programs were superficial, compliance-driven, or symbolic, and many institutions struggled to show lasting results. That mixed record is part of why the label became a target. But the underlying problem, unequal access that outlived the laws meant to fix it, never went away.

What DEI Does

DEI turns on one distinction that trips up most of the debate. Equity is not the same as equality.

Equality means giving everyone the same thing. The same packet, the same rules, the same starting line.

Equity means adjusting the support so people who begin in different places can reach the same access. The aim is a fair outcome, not identical inputs.

The difference is easy to see at work. Equal treatment hands every new hire the same onboarding packet. Equitable treatment adds assistive technology for a worker who is blind, translated materials for an immigrant, or extra training for someone the old system left unprepared. Each person gets what they need to do the job.

This is why “DEI equals race quotas” misses the target. Think of the federal hiring pathway for people with disabilities, the TRIO programs for first-generation students, the VA’s outreach to disabled veterans. All of it is DEI, and none of it is a quota. DEI asks one practical question. What in the system is blocking capable people from getting in and moving up?

“DEI solves to remove barriers within organizations, so that everyone, no matter their background or experience, can equitably elevate.”

Netta Jenkins, DEI strategist and author

This also reframes the “merit” argument that drives much of the opposition. Critics say DEI sacrifices merit for identity. Supporters answer that a real merit system needs a fair process, with structured interviews, broader candidate pools, and bias review. Bias hides easily inside a process that only looks neutral. The real disagreement is about what counts as merit, and whether the process measuring it is fair.

The Playbook to Ban It

DEI became a target through a deliberate strategy, one that reused the playbook from the earlier panic over critical race theory.

Christopher Rufo described the method openly in 2021. The goal, he wrote, was to make the public hear a controversy and think “critical race theory,” then to “decodify” the term and “recodify” it to cover a broader set of unpopular ideas. When CRT faded, DEI became the new target for the same campaign.

1. 2021 Rufo names the strategy The plan: brand a basket of issues under one toxic label, starting with "critical race theory."
2. 2023 The Manhattan Institute model bill Rufo drafts model legislation to ban DEI at public universities; its language later appears, often verbatim, in 10 states.
3. Jun 2023 SFFA v. Harvard The Supreme Court ends race-conscious admissions, giving opponents a legal opening to target DEI next.
4. 2024 State bans take effect Texas SB 17 and others close DEI offices, cut jobs, and freeze scholarships.
5. Jan 2025 Trump EO 14151 A first-day order ends all federal DEI, including disability and veteran-equity programs.

Sources: NYT; Manhattan Institute; SCOTUS; Federal Register.

From the CRT Panic to DEI Bans, 2021-2025: 2021 — Rufo names the strategy (The plan: brand a basket of issues under one toxic label, starting with "critical race theory."). 2023 — The Manhattan Institute model bill (Rufo drafts model legislation to ban DEI at public universities; its language later appears, often verbatim, in 10 states.). Jun 2023 — SFFA v. Harvard (The Supreme Court ends race-conscious admissions, giving opponents a legal opening to target DEI next.). 2024 — State bans take effect (Texas SB 17 and others close DEI offices, cut jobs, and freeze scholarships.). Jan 2025 — Trump EO 14151 (A first-day order ends all federal DEI, including disability and veteran-equity programs.).

The state spread followed the classic model-legislation pattern. A template bill is drafted once, then introduced across states with small changes and a lot of shared text. That is why the bans in Florida, Texas, Iowa, and Mississippi share the same targets, the same definitions, and the same enforcement hooks. Reporting found nearly identical language from one state to the next, the fingerprint of a single drafting effort.

DEI is easy to caricature. Opponents cast it as racial preference, a threat to merit, or “woke” excess. Analysts who track the campaign note that the label’s breadth is the point, vague enough that almost any grievance about a school, an agency, or a company can be filed under it. Attacking “DEI,” they argue, doubles as a way to roll back the broader civil-rights enforcement it grew out of.

Which States Banned DEI

Eighteen states have enacted restrictions on DEI in public higher education since 2023, drawn from at least 65 anti-DEI bills introduced nationwide. The map below tracks public higher education. Restrictions on K-12 and state-government DEI often follow different rules and timelines.

Enacted DEI restriction (18 states)

No statewide ban

Sources: Chronicle of Higher Education; MOST Policy Initiative; CSWE.

State DEI Restrictions in Public Higher Education

State	Status	Detail
Texas	Enacted a DEI restriction	SB 17 (2024): bans DEI offices, training, and diversity statements at public universities. Among the broadest in the nation.
Utah	Enacted a DEI restriction	Bans DEI offices in higher ed and state government employment.
Florida	Enacted a DEI restriction	Bars state and federal funds for DEI programs at public universities.
Iowa	Enacted a DEI restriction	Bans DEI offices at state colleges and universities.
Tennessee	Enacted a DEI restriction	Bans implicit-bias training requirements for higher-ed employees.
Ohio	Enacted a DEI restriction	SB 1 (2025): bans DEI offices and training at public universities.
Oklahoma	Enacted a DEI restriction	Executive order abolishing DEI positions at state universities.
Alabama	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI programs and "divisive concepts" training.
Arkansas	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI offices, training, or statements in public higher education.
Idaho	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI offices, training, or statements in public higher education.
Indiana	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI offices, training, or statements in public higher education.
Kansas	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI offices, training, or statements in public higher education.
Kentucky	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI offices, training, or statements in public higher education.
Mississippi	Enacted a DEI restriction	Passed a DEI ban in 2025.
North Carolina	Enacted a DEI restriction	Board repealed its diversity policy.
North Dakota	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI offices, training, or statements in public higher education.
West Virginia	Enacted a DEI restriction	Restricts DEI offices, training, or statements in public higher education.
Wyoming	Enacted a DEI restriction	Defunded DEI through the state budget.
Alaska	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Arizona	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
California	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Colorado	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Connecticut	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Delaware	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
District of Columbia	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Georgia	No statewide DEI ban	University System cut DEI through budget action, no statute.
Hawaii	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Illinois	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Maine	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Maryland	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Massachusetts	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Michigan	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Minnesota	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Missouri	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Montana	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Nebraska	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Nevada	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
New Hampshire	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
New Jersey	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
New Mexico	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
New York	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Oregon	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Pennsylvania	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Rhode Island	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
South Carolina	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
South Dakota	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Vermont	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Virginia	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Washington	No statewide DEI ban	No statewide law restricting DEI in public higher education.
Wisconsin	No statewide DEI ban	Froze DEI hiring via budget deal, no full ban.

Texas and Utah are the broadest. Texas’s SB 17 bans DEI offices, training, and diversity statements in a single statute and reaches every public university. Utah extends its ban into state-government employment. The other states are usually narrower, hitting one piece, like mandatory training or diversity statements, rather than everything at once.

The Human Cost

The bans are written about offices and ideology. They are felt by the students and staff who lose a mentor, a scholarship, or the one place on campus where they belonged.

Jacob Fazio was a senior at the University of Florida when the school laid off its chief diversity officer, Marsha McGriff, in March 2024. McGriff had been his mentor. “I had to pour my heart out to Dr. McGriff about how I was feeling,” he said, “and she was the first person to give me a plan of action to make it better.” After the cuts, Fazio described an “immense frustration” and a sense that the university had disregarded what diversity gave him. McGriff moved on to a job at UMass Amherst. The students she mentored got no replacement.

Texas went the furthest. At the University of Texas at Austin, the school laid off about 60 employees and dissolved its campus-engagement division. It defunded cultural graduation ceremonies, closed centers that had served Black students, repurposed the center for gender and sexuality, and shut down the Monarch Program for undocumented students along with its scholarship. Samantha Alvarez, a UT freshman from a family of immigrants, called that closure “both frustrating and saddening.”

The cuts reached money the state never even paid. Texas froze or rewrote 131 scholarships to comply, some of them privately funded for the exact students the donors wanted to help. Faculty felt the chill too. Wendy Watson left the University of North Texas, pointing to the law’s reach and the fear of how far it might expand.

What DEI Bans Roll Back

DEI did not appear out of nowhere. Pulling it out does not return institutions to neutral. It returns them to the barriers the civil-rights laws were written to remove. The mentoring, accommodation, and recruitment systems are the everyday machinery that makes a law against discrimination real instead of a line on paper.

The short-term damage

In the first year the losses are concrete and countable. Offices close, staff are laid off, scholarships freeze, programs shut down. Many schools cut more than the law required, scrubbing websites and ending programs out of fear before any regulator asked. The immediate result is a student body and a workforce with less support and more uncertainty.

The long-term erosion

The deeper damage is slower and harder to photograph. When the mentoring and accommodation pipelines disappear, the disparities they were closing start to widen again. Staff leave, and the people who remain absorb the work informally or drop it. Prospective students notice. After Texas passed SB 17, reporting found students reconsidering whether to attend its public universities at all. Fewer first-generation, disabled, and veteran students get in and finish, which narrows the path into the workforce and into leadership a decade out.

Who loses protection

Because “DEI” became shorthand for “race,” it is easy to miss who relied on the infrastructure. Affinity centers and mentoring served racial minorities. Resource centers and anti-harassment systems served LGBTQ students and workers. Accommodation offices served disabled people. Outreach served veterans and first-generation students. When a ban removes those structures, each group loses a protection that took decades to build. The bias those structures were built to counter has an easier path back.

Workplaces follow the same pattern, just less visibly. A DEI role is cut, the office dissolves, and the mentoring, employee resource groups, and complaint pathways get absorbed informally or vanish. Managers are told to drop the language even when the real task is recruiting broader talent or granting a reasonable accommodation. The company keeps saying the right words. It just stops funding the work, and the people who were already underrepresented advance more slowly, speak up less, and leave sooner.

The Federal and Corporate Retreat

The campaign moved from the states to the federal government and the private sector at once.

The federal rollback

On January 20, 2025, his first day in office, President Trump signed Executive Order 14151, ending all federal DEI programs and ordering agencies to close DEI offices and cut the positions. The reach went well past race. The Department of Veterans Affairs ended DEI work that had served disabled veterans, women veterans, LGBTQ veterans, and religious minorities. Nearly 60 of its employees were placed on leave. The FBI had already closed its diversity office weeks earlier.

The corporate pullback

Many large companies retreated under political and legal pressure, not any law requiring it. Target rolled back major DEI initiatives in January 2025, joining Meta, McDonald’s, and Walmart, which had already cut or ended programs. A smaller group held firm. Costco’s shareholders overwhelmingly rejected an anti-DEI proposal, and the company called its commitment to inclusion appropriate and necessary. Apple’s shareholders did the same.

Does DEI Work?

DEI’s results are real but uneven. The strongest evidence is for targeted access programs, and the weakest is for the popular claim that diversity guarantees profit.

Program quality matters enormously. Diversity training reliably improves knowledge and some attitudes, but its effect on long-term behavior is smaller and can fade. A meta-analysis of more than 40 years of research found effects strongest on learning and weakest on durable behavior change. Generic, one-off trainings are weak. Repeated, skills-based programs do better.

The famous claim that diversity boosts profits is the shakiest part. McKinsey’s diversity-profitability studies are real and influential, but a 2024 critique and later replications found the studies could not support a clean causal claim. The likely story runs the other way. More successful firms can afford to diversify.

The strongest case for DEI was never the profit claim. It is the access claim. Closing an office strands real students and workers, and the access programs that serve veterans and first-generation students are where the evidence is strongest.

Bans on Paper vs. in Practice

What a ban says and what disappears are often two very different things.

The chilling effect

Many institutions cut DEI programs before any law forced them to. Schools scrubbed websites and closed offices preemptively, out of fear of losing federal funding or drawing an audit. The real-world reach of the bans is therefore wider than their text, because fear does what no statute required.

The rebrand to survive

Other schools did not eliminate the work. They renamed it. Nearly 90 universities rebranded DEI offices as “Belonging,” “Student Success,” “Access,” or “Inclusive Excellence,” often keeping the same staff and services. Sometimes the rename is cosmetic. Sometimes it reflects a real retreat into only the legally required civil-rights compliance. Either way, the same statute produces wildly different outcomes from one campus to the next.

Government is not private business

The two halves of the story work differently. In government and public universities, laws and orders directly force closures and layoffs. In the private sector, companies retreat voluntarily under political or investor pressure, which is why Target and Meta could roll back DEI with no statute demanding it. Treating those two as the same thing misreads the fight.

Where the Bans Hit a Wall

The bans are not unstoppable, and the limit is federal law. Title IX, Title VI, and the Americans with Disabilities Act still require schools and employers to prevent sex, race, and disability discrimination, to respond to harassment, and to provide accommodations. A state can ban the DEI label, but it cannot order an institution to stop doing what federal civil-rights law requires.

That collision is already in court. In 2026, a federal court permanently blocked the Education Department’s anti-DEI directive, finding it unconstitutionally vague and viewpoint-discriminatory. The ruling does not erase state bans, but it shows that the broadest attempts to stamp out DEI run into the Constitution and the civil-rights statutes DEI grew from.

The practical lesson for institutions is to separate the label from the function. The DEI title can come off the door. The legally required work underneath it still has to get done, including the harassment reporting, the accommodation, and the equal-access compliance. Schools and employers that cut that work to look compliant are often cutting more than the law demands, and exposing themselves to a different kind of lawsuit.

Frequently asked questions

Is DEI the same as affirmative action? No. Affirmative action was a specific legal mechanism in hiring and admissions, and the Supreme Court ended its use in college admissions in 2023. DEI is broader and more structural, covering accommodation, mentorship, recruitment, and access programs that have nothing to do with admissions quotas.

Does DEI mean hiring less-qualified people? No. Most DEI work is about removing barriers in how people are recruited, supported, and evaluated, so qualified people are not screened out unfairly. Federal disability-hiring pathways, for example, make recruitment accessible, not preferential.

Why do companies keep DEI if it is so unpopular? Polls show most Americans support the underlying goals, like fair treatment and anti-bias training, even when they dislike the label. Companies that kept DEI, like Costco, saw shareholders reject anti-DEI proposals by wide margins.

If a school renames its DEI office, did the ban work? Sometimes the services survive under a new name; sometimes they are gutted and only the label remains. The outcome depends entirely on how aggressively each institution reads the law, which is why two schools in one state can look completely different.

What you can do

1. Show up where the bans are written. Most DEI bans pass at the state level. When your legislature or university board takes up an anti-DEI bill, public comment and testimony are where these fights are decided. Bring specifics: who in your community loses support. Find your legislators at openstates.org.
2. Tell your representatives who pays. Ask them by name to protect the access programs buried inside DEI offices, the ones serving veterans, disabled students, and first-generation students. Use the letter below.
3. Don’t let institutions over-comply. Out of fear, many schools and employers cut more than the law requires. Push your university, board, or employer to keep the services the law still allows.
4. Support the programs directly. Donate to, mentor for, or volunteer with the student-support centers, scholarships, and access programs under threat. Many survive now only because people are defending them.