Kansas Anti-DEI Laws Threaten College Academic Freedom

Kansas lawmakers are the latest to join the state-sanctioned attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) on college campuses.

Like in many other states, Kansas lawmakers want to give themselves the power to control curricula and classroom discussion by banning required courses focused on DEI, a term most of the states fail to define (as they do with “Critical Race Theory,” which is often attached to it). None of this is good.

DEI in higher education is a definite problem, but so is anti-DEI legislation. The cure is worse than the disease.

It is worth noting that commentary on the national anti-DEI phenomenon often fails to acknowledge an important distinction: The bills only prohibit schools from requiring DEI courses, but they would not literally ban them. That DEI courses would still be available as electives implies that states are focused on banning compulsion, not exposure.

That is, they want to make sure students are not mandated to embrace and abide by DEI and the illiberal ideology undergirding it.

Does this detail change much? Not really. Though it looks good on paper, banning only required DEI courses may still have a harmful effect on education, introducing a chilling effect on college campuses. Under these bills, what can and cannot be said in a classroom is still left quite vague.

Can a required course discuss — even if it doesn’t endorse — things like Critical Race Theory and other related topics? More broadly, can a required course discuss the history of race relations and the relevant ideologies produced by the long fight for civil rights? In most state bills, that is unclear. Professors may avoid the topic just to be safe, or engage in the subterfuge of redesigning, retitling, and reframing courses to show compliance.

State legislatures may be the most troubling actors in this story, and their efforts are likely to succeed. Even Kansas, one red state with a Democratic governor, has a congressional supermajority of Republicans, so even if anti-DEI legislation is vetoed, it can be overridden by a supermajority.

President Reagan probably didn’t have colleges and universities in mind when he discovered the nine most terrifying words in the English language — “I’m from the government and I’m here to help” — but here it is fitting. Legislatures (and other non-academic bodies, for that matter) are taking it upon themselves to determine what counts as legitimate knowledge.

People who are not academics or even adjacent to academia should not be the sole decision makers for academic issues. Anti-DEI legislation sets a dangerous precedent for government overreach.

It is true that some places have workarounds. Kansas’s Board of Regents, for example, allows exemptions for race and gender courses. But these exemptions must be accepted by that board, which may or may not include people well-informed about how academia works. Even with possible exemptions, the power imbalance between lawmakers and academics remains.

Academics having to ask non-academics for permission on what to teach is a clear sign that higher education is losing its ability to self-direct. Thus, we are just replacing one problem with another: academia’s loss of autonomy.

Anti-DEI legislation is a real political movement. It is a zeitgeist with much momentum, fueled by a desire to right the illiberal wrongs of the past decade of academia. But having lawmakers do that instead of academics creates its own bigger problems.

Yes, this legislation is happening as a response to illiberal academic behavior, but legislative overreach is not so much a solution as it is a new and bigger problem. The proper way to revise curricula is through those who will actually be teaching it.

Figuring out how to return to that idea and maintain academic freedom is a daunting but necessary task.