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Editor’s Note, 2/14/2025, 5:41 p.m.: This article has been updated to include new information regarding the professors who recently resigned from University of North Texas.
Wendy Watson teaches political science courses at the University of North Texas, and she has for a combined 17 years. When Watson isn’t teaching courses on constitutional law and American government structures, she heads the university’s pre-law program, advising law school hopefuls through their undergraduate careers.
But this is her last semester at the college. Watson is one of four instructors who have recently resigned from UNT’s political science department in the wake of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policy changes. The North Texas Daily reported on the departures on Feb. 8.
“I love my students,” Watson said. “I hate the thought of leaving them. I really do. It makes me so sad to think that they’re going to lose programs and support and recognition of their identity and recognition of their importance in our community.”
The lecturer cites an increasingly heavy workload for her resignation, but she also credits the building anxiety felt among professors caused by the passage of Senate Bill 17.
When Gov. Greg Abbott signed SB17, he effectively eliminated all DEI programs from public higher education institutions. The legislative move was one of the first in what would become a nationwide battle against DEI initiatives.
DEI programs on college campuses were first established to promote equal opportunities for all students regardless of their race, gender, sexuality, age and ability. The earliest of these programs allowed women to break into once inaccessible fields of study. The latter days of these programs aimed to also address the educational and social disparities affecting students of color, immigrant students and members of the LGBTQ+ community.
The changes to the Texas Education Code when SB17 passed saw the dismantling of DEI offices, training and hiring and employment opportunities on public campuses across the state.
Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, told the Public News Service that UNT instructors were told “to scrub words like class, equity and race” from their course titles. Over 70 courses within the College of Education ahead of the 2025 fall semester have new descriptions, thanks to the scrubbing of DEI-related language. The College of Education maintains, however, that the course changes were not prompted by SB17, but Watson disagrees.
“It doesn’t make sense that we would need to dramatically change the titles and descriptions of that many courses in order to comply with standards that have been around for quite some time,” Watson said. “I don’t know that the administration is purposefully deceiving us. I think one of the things that we’ve noticed with the implementation of SB17 is that there’s a lot of decentralization at the process. I am not sure, I think none of us are sure, where the impetus for some of the compliance is coming from.”
Watson thinks the university was dipping its toe in the water of a more expansive DEI crackdown and anticipates other departments will soon witness the same level of whittling.
“I think we all can see the writing on the wall that SB17 is just the beginning,” she said. “This isn’t the last word.”
Watson isn’t the only member of the political science department who noticed a palpable tension. Marijke Breuning has taught international relations courses at UNT since 2008 and has twice taught a course titled “Women, War and Peace.” Breuning will stay at the university but confirmed the unease among faculty in her department and across campus.
“I cannot speak for everyone in my department,” she said. “That said, my general impression is that many faculty members are uncertain what the future holds, both in the department and on campus more broadly.”
Social and liberal sciences are the most obvious targets of future DEI regulations, says Kelly Benjamin, a spokesperson for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). Sociology, anthropology and gender studies professors should buckle in for a bumpy ride as the state and nation navigate tumultuous territories under the staunch conservative direction of new President Donald Trump.
“Prior to this second Trump administration, it was safe to say that a lot of faculty that are at institutions witnessing attacks on fundamental principles, like academic freedom and interpretations of what diversity, equity and inclusion mean, those faculty tended to look elsewhere,” Benjamin said. “Now that we’re witnessing this nationwide crackdown on diversity, equity, inclusion, I think it calls into question, like, where can people go?”
We are in the early stages of the DEI demolition, says Benjamin. The DEI crackdown will immediately be felt by social science but will also significantly affect the researchers and scientists operating within the same spaces. Benjamin says health-based research programs and studies analyzing the environmental impacts on communities of color have already had the plug completely pulled.
“This is crucial. We have one of the preeminent biomedical research centers in the world in the United States. All of that research is in jeopardy because of this wide net that they’ve cast,” he noted.
The AAUP is one of the many organizations that have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration for “unlawful and unconstitutional” DEI orders.
“There’s no way we’re going to let them undermine American higher education,” Benjamin said. “But it’s going to take a lot of people getting in the fight and ensuring that we have a future of an American higher education system that serves the public good, not an ideological agenda of whatever prevailing politician is in power.”
