Pushback Starts: Texas Legislator Offers Bill To Stop Wokeness On Campuses

A bill from a Texas legislator is targeting the often one-sided leftist political viewpoints present in higher education institutions, demanding that DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) offices on campuses be banned.

The bill, Texas H.B. 1006, states clearly that “each institution of higher education has the general responsibility to foster a diversity of viewpoints” and to “maintain political, social and cultural neutrality.” It was introduced by Republican Rep. Carl Tepper.

The bill says that public institutions of higher education must adopt a policy that must “prohibit the funding, promotion, sponsorship, or support of any office of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” The institution must allow student organizations and faculty to invite speakers to speak on campus and “establish disciplinary sanctions for students, student organizations, or faculty who unduly interfere with the expressive activities of others on campus.”

The bill also provides an opportunity for redress for someone who feels the institution has failed in obeying the standards of the bill, allowing them to bring an action for injunctive relief to compel the institution to comply. The fees and costs that the person bringing the action would garner would come from the budget of the office of the chief executive officer of the institution or the institution’s system.

Education activist Christopher Rufo, whose dedicated work has exposed the use of Critical Race Theory-tinged curricula in schools and other organizations, praised the bill.

“D.E.I programs have become offices of racialist ideology, speech suppression, and political indoctrination—and deserve zero taxpayer support,” Rufo said while announcing that he would be “making a series of announcements early next year about a national campaign to abolish D.E.I. offices and reform higher education from the ground up.”

“We are assembling a team of the brightest policy minds in the country and will be *laying siege the universities*,” he declared.

I will be making a series of announcements early next year about a national campaign to abolish D.E.I. offices and reform higher education from the ground up. We are assembling a team of the brightest policy minds in the country and will be *laying siege the universities.*

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) December 16, 2022

Rufo has exposed the impact of the diversity movement numerous times: in the Seattle city government in July 2020; in the company that designs nuclear weapons for the United States in August 2020; in the San Diego Unified School District in December 2020; and in the second-largest defense contractor in America in July 2021.

Former Heritage Foundation president Dr. Ed Feulner has said of DEI programs at universities, “In some of the world’s greatest universities, woke is everywhere. We’re all in favor of more opportunity, but equity implies everyone will turn out equal and it has become more of a leveling down.”

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