Later, students like Contreras were told this means the university would no longer financially support events like the university’s annual drag show.
“When they had the programming, it felt like a safe haven in a city that doesn't feel safe for us,” says Contreras, a first-generation, nonbinary student. “I have a boyfriend, and when we go out, we get looks. But at least the university was on my side, and now it feels like they're not.”
The dissolution of these programs was a response to Senate Bill 17, a Texas law that, among other things, requires public universities to shutter their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) offices. Mandatory diversity training is also now illegal, as are hiring practices that involve departments asking applicants to talk about their commitment to diversity.
Worse yet, SB 17 created ample confusion about what is and is not permissible, leaving both students and professors wondering what services would still be available. Course instruction, research and student organizations are not impacted by the law, yet it’s unclear if professors and students en masse are aware of this nuance.
“One of the big problems that seems to be happening with implementation is what I would call the over-implementation,” Dr. Karma Chávez, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told her university’s student newspaper. “They have sort of enabled a culture in which people are confused about how far SB 17 actually reaches. I think that’s really unfortunate because it’s meant that SB 17 has had far more damage than the bill itself would have because of the interpretation.”
“I have a boyfriend, and when we go out, we get looks. But at least the university was on my side, and now it feels like they're not.” – Izayah Contreras, UTA Student
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Amidst this confusion — and the closing of programs they held dear — students are left to fill in the gaps and wonder what the future holds for their experience on campus.
Michael Anderson, a sophomore at UT Arlington, arrived on campus last year eager to get involved with political activism. He’d done similar work in high school, once organizing a petition in support of a teacher who advocated for socialist ideals. Once he reached college, he found a consistent group of people who shared his passions for activism.
Members of the Progressive Student Union — of which Anderson is now president — have been known for their support of DACA students and for their protests in the wake of the murder of George Floyd. Now, they’re assessing how to react to SB17.
“Right now, we’re focused on telling as many people as possible what services are still in effect,” Anderson says. “Ideally, we would like to see all DEI programs reinstated and given more resources than they had before SB 17. Disparities will continue to grow unless we actively work against decisions like this.”
But exactly how students, faculty and administrators can fight back against the law — or still do work under the DEI umbrella — remains a question to which no one has a single answer.
For its part, UTA opened the new Intercultural Student Engagement Center, which aims to support the retention of students from different “cultural, religious, spiritual and identity groups.” The University of North Texas created something similar. According to a spokesperson, UNT’s Center for Belonging and Engagement aims to “provide opportunities for connection and involvement that empower all of our students.” This new creation is also the home of the first-generation student center and Student Veteran Services.
Brianna Clay, a UNT alum who works in Dallas, is still worried.
“As an undergraduate and a graduate student, I experienced the rich diversity of the UNT student body,” she says. “I experienced and witnessed diverse student organizations and support for diverse perspectives among our student leaders and Greek lettered organizations. What worries me most about Texas’ SB17 is the impact that it can have on outcomes for students from historically disadvantaged groups and even more so for their sense of belonging to truly flourish in predominantly white institutions.”
Bryan Alexander, an author and higher-ed researcher, says it is possible to “do DEI work” under the banner of programs that don’t have the words “diversity, equity and inclusion” in their title.
Instead, “belonging” might be a popular name for these renamed or entirely new programs.
“Advisors are really going to be keen on different student experiences,” he says. "You can really put this under a whole bunch of headers, and it's not surreptitious; it's just trying to do the job.”
The scholar has been in touch with faculty and staff members across the country, and he says he has mostly heard “sadness and reservation.” Alexander also adds that professors could utilize the “progressive stack” technique, whereby students from marginalized groups are given a chance to speak first. Activities like this would not be illegal under SB 17.
However, if faculty and staff are left scrambling to find ways to support their students, Dr. Michael Sorrell says their institution is clearly failing them.
“A far simpler way of looking at [this law] is that it’s about restricting who gets to be included in our society,” says Sorrell, the president of Paul Quinn College, a private HBCU in Dallas. (Since Paul Quinn is a private institution, it does not have to comply with the new law.)
Sorrell adds that Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ students will bear the brunt of SB17’s ripple effect. “It’s going to have a chilling effect,” on the support students receive, he says.
“There is a point in time where we have to show up for our people. We have to show up aggressively; we have to show up unapologetically. And if we don’t do that, why should it be on the people further down the org chart to fight that fight? I don’t agree with that. I’m not going to abdicate my responsibility to my staff to be on the front lines.”
When interviewed for this story, Sorrell highlighted Paul Quinn’s expansion plans; he hopes to open urban work colleges with the “Paul Quinn” name in states like California.
Sorrell is attuned to the higher education trends shaping the country, and he wants people to realize SB 17 is directly tied to book bans and other attempts to “whitewash history” in states like Texas and Florida.
“It’s a way of trying to create a world that does not exist,” he says. “It’s a way to force people to accept a world that is actually contrary to their best interests, but is absolutely welcoming to special interests. And that’s wrong. It flies in the face of everything we know.”
For a source of hope, Sorrell points to a new movement led by the NAACP, which sent a letter to the NCAA effectively calling for Black athletes to boycott Florida colleges and universities.
"From racist voting policies, to unraveling reproductive freedoms and attempting to rewrite Black history, DeSantis has waged war on Black America," two NAACP officials wrote in the letter. "To all current and prospective college student-athletes — the NAACP urges you to reconsider any potential decision to attend, and compete at a predominantly white institution in the state of Florida.”
Yet Sorrell reiterates that it’s also incumbent on university leadership to stand up for students who no longer feel as though they belong on college campuses.
Both he and Contreras point out that larger universities — “market makers,” as Sorrell calls them — have the resources to stand up for their students. They either choose not to do so — or try to do so in a way that gives them cover.
“What about those of us who can’t seek cover?” Sorrell asks.
Contreras and his fellow students in the Queer Social Work Association have the same question. Right now, they’re focused on gestures that may seem small but can in fact mean the world to many students. One example is gender-neutral signage for some single-user restrooms on campus.
Contreras says he and the Association first emailed this request to university administration four months ago. Since then, responses have been slow and vague, giving Contreras the impression that, “they don’t want to talk about it; they want to wait for us to stop complaining.” As of this writing, UTA had not responded to the Observer’s requests for comment.
“At the end of the day, the LGBTQ+ community is a minority,” Contreras says. “So we need help from the majority.”
That’s where Anderson and his organization are trying to help, though they know how long even seemingly minor changes can take.
Six years ago, UTA students first surfaced a request to remove a bust of Ernest Hereford, a former president of the university. Hereford led the school during the 1950s, when it was called Arlington State College and was an all-white institution. During that time, the university adopted the “Rebel” as its mascot and the Confederate battle flag for its school symbol. Further, the Kampus Kadet Klub was a registered student organization.
For much of its existence, campus visitors were told to rub the Hereford bust as they passed by. It apparently offered good luck.
“We don’t want a bunch of middle schoolers going up and rubbing the head of somebody that, ya know, might’ve possibly called them the N-word back in the day,” Tyrin Prichett, a member of student government, told the university’s student newspaper in 2018.
“At the end of the day, the LGBTQ+ community is a minority. So we need help from the majority.” – Izayah Contreras
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For six years, students tried and failed to get the bust removed from campus. Anderson’s Progressive Student Union ultimately took up the fight, navigating the bureaucracy of campus policy before ultimately landing a meeting with the university’s current president. In late 2023, the president confirmed the bust would be moved to the on-campus library’s special collections section.
Anderson says this is an example of how students are “doing this work for the long haul,” but it’s clear he is frustrated about how long it took to remove the bust.
“We’re talking about at least six years of saying something,” he says. “We’re willing to try anything and everything to get stuff done, but we want to see progress while students are still here on campus.”
At the same time, he understands people, especially staff members, are anxious about losing their jobs for being public about something as benign as their abstract support of diversity. That’s why his organization has mostly focused on getting the administration to clearly state which services are still available to students in the world created by SB 17. Recently, they were successful; at the open house for the Intercultural Student Engagement Center, school officials outlined the services available.
Contreras is happy those offerings are still on campus, but he has seen firsthand that broader awareness is still lacking. At a recent tabling event for the Queer Social Work Association, he and other members of the group engaged many students who had no idea the university had dissolved its LGBTQ+ programming. When they were told this was a reaction to SB 17, some students said they were also unaware of the new law.
“That,” he said, “did surprise me.”
Contreras adds that after SB 17 passed, he was assured by friends, faculty and staff members on campus that LGBTQ+ programming would not be dissolved.
“Then, ‘poof,’ it’s gone,” he says.
He is a lifelong Texan, but now, these latest developments have him questioning a move.
“I want to live here, because it's home," Contreras said. "But if home is rejecting me, the only logical thing to do is go somewhere else.”
