Just one day after the Mississippi House of Representatives passed legislation aiming to squash diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) campaigns in public education settings, the Senate followed in the footsteps of its cross-chamber counterpart.
Senate Bill 2515, dubbed the “Requiring Efficiency for Our Colleges and Universities System (REFOCUS) Act,” passed with only Republican support following a series of impassioned remarks by supporters and opponents alike.
The bill aims to ensure that all hiring and admissions practices at public institutions of higher learning are merit-based, preventing one from being elevated solely because of his or her race, gender, or sexual orientation. It would also force institutions of higher learning receiving taxpayer dollars to shutter DEI offices and bar them from conducting diversity training for staff and students.
The bill creates a task force consisting of legislators and some appointees by the governor and lieutenant governor to address how efficiently and effectively Mississippi’s public colleges and universities are operating. One of the primary objectives is to focus on ways to improve the state’s low graduation rates on the postsecondary level.
Multiple Democratic lawmakers, a majority of whom are Black, spoke out against the legislation. While passionately referencing Mississippi’s troubled past, including slavery, disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow, the handful of dissenting voices challenged the motive of the bill and raised concerns over the prospects of history repeating itself.
Sen. Bradford Blackmon, D-Canton, contended that abolishing certain inclusion initiatives could move the Magnolia State in the opposite direction of progress. Blackmon, the son of retired Rep. Ed Blackmon and former Sen. Barbara Blackmon, acknowledged that he was not directly harmed by discrimination in college but spoke on his father’s encounters with prejudice in the state.
He argued that ending DEI programs would leave minority students without certain safety nets that give them a sense of safety, security, and even acceptance on a campus where they are not the most represented demographically.
“Both of [my parents] were alive when segregation was going on, and they went to segregated schools for a solid portion of their life. For my father, the first time he felt welcomed at a school that was not ‘all minority’ was when he left the state and went to [George Washington University] for law school because he felt that there was a community around him that allowed him to do that,” Blackmon said.
“Mississippi’s had a sordid history. James Meredith integrated Ole Miss and he has a statue on campus that has been consistently wrapped with a noose because of the history our state has. I’m just trying to figure out why we need to eliminate programs that help minorities feel welcome at our institutions of higher learning.”
Sen. Tyler McCaughn, one of the bill’s sponsors, argued otherwise. The Republican from Newton maintained that the focus of the legislation is to improve academic standards for all students, no matter their race, gender, or religion. McCaughn added that eliminating DEI programs would not result in a sudden takeover of colleges by homogenous populations.
“There’s not an attempt to destroy any successes of the state of Mississippi. We’re only trying to make it better. Abolishing DEI policies does not mean we’re abandoning diversity,” McCaughn said.
“If you look at this body, we’ve done everything we can over the last years to be sure that our schools have the resources they need to prepare Black, white, Hispanic, [and] Asian Americans to get into college and succeed. That’s where we should be seeing the difference right now. We should be seeing that the students who are coming out of our schools are ready to succeed in our university system.”
DEI has been a hot topic at both the state and federal levels. Critics of DEI argue it creates discrimination, particularly racial and sex-based, by causing others to be disadvantaged. Proponents, on the other hand, point to the concept as a form of leveling the playing field for historically disenfranchised people by enforcing equal representation.
In Mississippi, Republican State Auditor Shad White has criticized public universities for their implementation of DEI programs. He has gone so far as to suggest that taxpayers are subsidizing “indoctrination.” Nationally, Republican President Donald Trump signed an executive order barring DEI initiatives among any U.S. business or academic institution receiving federal funding.
State Sen. Hillman Frazier, D-Jackson, saw the attempt by his chamber to rid colleges and universities of DEI policies as a concept eerily reminiscent of 19th-century laws that served to keep Black Mississippians from having the ability to vote in elections.
“Today, we are looking at our new 1890 constitution. We don’t have to follow what they’re doing on a national level. In Mississippi, we’ve learned to work together, to live together, to love together, and because of that, we’ve been able to rise above some of our past mistakes,” Frazier said.
“This bill that we’re considering today is bad for the state of Mississippi. We don’t need it. We don’t need to follow the national example because they’re doing it from a position of fear. In Mississippi, we can pass legislation on the basis of love.”
SB 2515 differs from the House’s recently passed DEI-related legislation in that it only applies to colleges and universities, whereas HB 1193 applies to all public schools and institutions receiving state funding. The House’s bill also requires schools to teach that there are only two genders — male and female — based on one’s chromosomal makeup. The Senate’s bill has no such language.
Both pieces of legislation failed to earn a “yea” vote from a Democratic lawmaker. Each chamber will now have the chance to review the others’ DEI proposal and later iron out a singular bill.
