DEI programs at public universities targeted

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It’s Saturday, Dec. 16, and we’d like to welcome you to the weekly State and Local Roundup. There is plenty to keep tabs on with Washington raking in $1.8 billion from its carbon auctions, Houston electing a new mayor, Pennsylvania finally passing a budget (nearly six months late) and a bull on the train tracks disrupting the morning commute in New Jersey.

But first we turn to the fight over diversity initiatives on college campuses.

Republican officials in several states are trying to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion efforts that have been a part of campus life for decades, and this week those efforts intensified when Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order that takes aim at DEI programs in the state. It follows similar measures advanced this month by GOP officials in Ohio and Wisconsin. Their actions could be a sign of what’s to come in legislative sessions this spring.

“In Oklahoma, we’re going to encourage equal opportunity, rather than promising equal outcomes,” said Stitt, a Republican, in a statement. “Encouraging our workforce, economy and education systems to flourish means shifting focus away from exclusivity and discrimination, and toward opportunity and merit. We’re taking politics out of education and focusing on preparing students for the workforce.”

David Safavian, the general counsel for the American Conservative Union, which organizes the Conservative Political Action Conference, praised the order, which targets DEI programs in state agencies and public universities.

“For years, universities and government agencies, even those in red states, have become increasingly beholden to a coercive liberal agenda, often framed under the banner of DEI,” he said. “The transformation of these institutions has been exposed following the response by major universities in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 terror attack by Hamas.”

“Abolishing DEI bureaucracies and ending mandatory ‘diversity’ training and DEI hiring statements will ensure Oklahoma’s institutions can focus on the diversity of ideas, rather than shame-based political activism,” Safavian said in a statement.

The conservative focus on DEI programs started with the backlash to “critical race theory” in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd protests. But it has picked up steam in recent months, after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action programs at colleges in June, and U.S. House Republicans last week pilloried Ivy League presidents for their handling of antisemitism on campuses.

The executive order by Stitt adds Oklahoma to a list of states—including Florida, Iowa and Texas—seeking to restrict state funding for DEI measures.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation to do so in May, after the Republican presidential hopeful had already eliminated a diversity office at the New College of Florida in an effort to reshape it into a conservative bastion. The Texas Legislature passed a law earlier this year that will ban DEI offices at public universities beginning in January. The Iowa Board of Regents voted in November to gut DEI programs that aren’t needed to get research grants or maintain accreditations. Arkansas lawmakers are also exploring moves to scale back or eliminate DEI programming.

In Oklahoma, Stitt’s order prohibiting state agencies and public universities from spending money on DEI programs also bars colleges from requiring DEI education or training.

Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, has been a vocal critic of DEI programs in K-12 schools and in higher education. He has called such programs “Marxist” and led an effort to demand state universities disclose the cost of all diversity efforts they provided (the tally was about $10 million, with a third of that coming from state appropriations).

Walters praised Stitt’s executive order. “DEI rightfully should be known as discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination. It does not represent American values,” Walters said. “Gov. Stitt is right for taking a strong step to protect Oklahomans from these discriminatory programs. We must not distort important historical events that push liberal indoctrination, and our curriculum must not teach identity politics.”

In Ohio, a House panel advanced a sweeping bill earlier this month that would prohibit DEI training unless it’s required by law, needed to maintain professional licenses or get accreditation or grants. The long-stalled bill would also give administrators more authority to fire tenured faculty and limit interactions with Chinese academic institutions. Its future is unclear, though. The bill has been amended nearly a dozen times, and House Speaker Jason Stephens said recently that the proposal still doesn’t have the votes to pass the chamber.

This week, the University of Wisconsin regents voted to accept a Republican proposal that would provide money for employee pay raises and a new engineering building in exchange for making cuts to the system’s diversity efforts.

Three members of the board flipped their votes after originally opposing the deal, as legislative Republicans ratcheted up pressure. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos blocked the pay raises that had been included in the state’s two-year budget to force the issue. And Senate President Chris Kapenga hinted that the upper chamber might block confirmation of four regents if no deal was reached. “You would think these regents would have learned from the tone-deaf Ivy League leadership that was removed last week,” Kapenga wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Republicans know this is just the first step in what will be our continuing efforts to eliminate these cancerous DEI practices on UW campuses,” Vos, a longtime nemesis of Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, tweeted after the vote.

But members of the Wisconsin Legislative Black Caucus blasted the arrangement.

“This deal is part of a systematic racist deal,” said Rep. Dora Drake, a Milwaukee Democrat. “It is discriminatory toward students, faculty and staff of color because their experiences should never have a price tag and should never be bought out on what inclusion looks like on our campuses.”

The deal could have long-lasting implications for higher education funding in Wisconsin, noted Erin Gretzinger of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“In Wisconsin, which has a storied history of higher education funding battles that have left the state’s public universities among the lowest funded in the nation, the deal has set off alarm bells about the precedent for future budget negotiations,” she wrote. “Concerns about funding for the system are especially prominent as 10 out of its 13 universities face structural deficits that have forced layoffs in recent months.”

LaVar Charleston, the chief diversity officer for the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Wisconsin State Journal that neither he nor anyone else doing DEI work at the state’s flagship campus would be going anywhere, despite the agreement.

“Diversity of perspectives, diversity of backgrounds is what breeds the most innovative solutions to the world’s most challenging problems,” he said. “If higher education, and public higher education to be specific, is not the place to embrace those diversity ... ideas, then I don’t know what place is.”

Keep reading as there’s more news to use below, and if you don’t already and would prefer to get this roundup in your inbox, you can subscribe to this newsletter here. We here at Route Fifty would like to wish everyone happy holidays! The Roundup is going on a two-week hiatus. We'll see you in the New Year.

News to Use

Trends, Common Challenges, Cool Ideas, FYIs and Notable Events

• ELECTIONS: Texas state Sen. John Whitmire elected Houston mayor. State Sen. John Whitmire has defeated U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee in a landslide victory to serve as the next mayor of Houston—the largest city in Texas and the fourth most populous in the country. He will succeed Mayor Sylvester Turner, who is term-limited. The office is nonpartisan, though Whitmire has served in the Senate as a Democrat since 1983, making him the chamber’s most senior member. Whitmire ran on a platform of increasing public safety, fixing streets and reducing cronyism at City Hall. He also promised to improve the relationship between Houston and the Republican-led legislature in Austin. In his victory speech Saturday, Whitmire promised to expand the city's police force and tackle infrastructure issues with roads and water systems.


• DEATH PENALTY: Alabama sued over proposed nitrogen execution. The spiritual advisor to a man scheduled to be executed by Alabama in January has filed a lawsuit alleging that a new method of execution will interfere with his pastoral duties. In the lawsuit filed Wednesday against the Alabama Department of Corrections, Rev. Jeff Hood alleged that the state’s proposal to execute Kenneth Eugene Smith by nitrogen gas will require him to stay three feet away from Smith, because the state believes the gas could potentially also kill Hood. “There is no scientific basis nor was evidence taken during the passage of this legislation or producing the protocol that indicates this ‘safe area’ would make anyone safe,” the motion stated. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that states must accommodate requests of death row inmates for prayers and physical contact with their pastors during executions.


• BUDGET: Following a nearly six-month impasse, Pennsylvania has a budget. In a late night voting session on Wednesday more than five months after its deadline passed, the Pennsylvania Legislature sent the final pieces of the state budget to Gov. Josh Shapiro to sign. Despite the delay, Shapiro called the budget legislation historic and touted investments in education, health care, criminal justice and support for working families. He also praised lawmakers in the House and Senate for working together to accomplish legislative goals. Both bills passed with broad bipartisan support in each chamber despite the partisan gridlock that had kept the legislation unfinished since June.


• IMMIGRATION: Illinois approves driver’s licenses for noncitizens. Immigrants in Illinois with or without permission from U.S. immigration authorities will soon be able to obtain standard driver’s licenses that can be used for identification. Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed the legislation last week, which will phase out the “Temporary Visitor Driver’s License,” or TVDL, which noncitizens currently use to drive legally in Illinois. The new law takes effect July 1, 2024. TVDLs look similar to a standard driver’s licenses, except they have a purple strip across the top that reads “TVDL” above the words “NOT VALID FOR IDENTIFICATION.” Immigrant rights advocates say the purple bar on the TVDL stigmatizes the people holding them, creates barriers to other kinds of services that require identification such as picking up medication from a pharmacy or signing an apartment lease, and exposes them to law enforcement action.


• MARIJUANA: DEA warns Georgia pharmacies that selling medical marijuana is illegal. In a major blow to expanding access to medical cannabis in Georgia, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration has warned pharmacies across the state that dispensing medical marijuana violates federal law. The warning comes just after the state became the first in the nation to authorize the practice. Georgia’s medical marijuana panel acknowledged Wednesday there is nothing they can do at this moment that would allow pharmacies to be able to sell medical marijuana products, even though it’s allowed under state law. In Georgia, medical marijuana, in the form of low-THC cannabis oil, is available to Georgians with approval from a physician to treat severe illnesses including seizures, terminal cancers, Parkinson’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.


• GUNS: Communities across the U.S. are fueling a secondary arms market. When Flint, Michigan, announced in September that 68 assault weapons collected in a gun buyback would be incinerated, the city cited its policy of never reselling firearms. But Flint’s guns were not going to be melted down. Instead, they made their way to a private company that has collected millions of dollars taking firearms from police agencies, destroying a single piece of each weapon stamped with the serial number and selling the rest as nearly complete gun kits. Buyers online can easily replace what’s missing and reconstitute the weapon. Hundreds of towns and cities have turned to this growing industry, which offers to destroy guns used in crimes, surrendered in buybacks or replaced by police force upgrades. But these communities are in fact fueling a secondary arms market, where weapons slated for destruction are recycled into civilian hands, often with no background check required, according to interviews and a review of gun disposal contracts, patent records and online listings for firearms parts conducted by The New York Times.


• IMMIGRATION: Some states spurn migrants. The Rust Belt wants them. While cities like New York, Chicago and Boston are struggling to house and provide social services for migrants, communities experiencing population loss, including Detroit; Dayton, Ohio; and Erie, Pennsylvania, have been working with outside experts on how to transform city services to meet the needs of immigrants. Topeka, Kansas, is even offering legal migrants up to $15,000 to move there. The different approaches are sparking a debate over just what it means to be tolerant and hospitable, and it has left some city leaders befuddled over why their communities are being overlooked by immigrants, the Washington Post reports. Those questions are expected only to assume greater urgency next year when the presidential election converges on the Rust Belt, elevating tensions over immigration while also sparking discussions over economic problems such as persistent labor shortages.


• MEDICAID: Kansas governor unveils Medicaid expansion plan. Gov. Laura Kelly unveiled Thursday her proposal for a Medicaid expansion package that includes a work requirement, revenue streams to offset the state’s cost, abortion restrictions and other provisions to address concerns raised by opponents. By expanding Medicaid, an estimated 150,000 Kansans with low incomes would gain access to medical care. About $700 million in annual federal funding would flow into the state, offering a lifeline to 59 rural hospitals at risk of closing. The Democratic governor has toured the state since September to rally support for Medicaid expansion. GOP leaders in the legislature have stonewalled Medicaid expansion for years, but polling shows 80% of Kansans, including a majority of Republicans, support the idea. Kelly said she will introduce a bill in the upcoming legislative session that is revenue neutral. Under the work requirement, people would have to prove they are employed in order to sign up for services and renew them each year. The state health secretary would develop exceptions to allow enrollment by full-time students, caretakers, veterans and those with medical conditions.


• INFANTS: Distressed parents can surrender newborns anonymously. Parents will now be able to surrender newborns anonymously under a law signed by Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers that expands on the state's previous law allowing parents to leave a newborn with law enforcement and medical professionals without legal consequence. Since 2012, the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families reported there were more than 200 infants relinquished to state to police officers, emergency medical technicians or hospital employees. States with Safe Haven Baby Boxes include: Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Mississippi, North Carolina, Iowa, Missouri and West Virginia.


• DRUG PRICES: New prescription affordability drug board holds first vote. $234,439. That is the average cost in Colorado per patient per year for Trikafta, a prescription drug that treats cystic fibrosis. It’s a rare disease, but even with only a few hundred patients taking the drug in Colorado, the total amount spent on Trikafta in the state in 2022 topped $108 million. In a remarkable hearing last week, a groundbreaking state board declined to label Trikafta unaffordable. To understand why this was such a significant decision, it helps to understand the procedural wheels that have been quietly churning for months. When lawmakers created the board in 2021, they endowed it with an unprecedented power: The board can, after careful review, decide if a drug is unaffordable. If the board declares it to be so, it can then set what is called an “upper payment limit.” In other words, the board can cap the price of the drug in Colorado. This has never happened before—the hearing marked the first time the board had taken an affordability vote. An upper payment limit on Trikafta would have been the first on any drug in the country, had the board approved it.


• ENVIRONMENT: “Historic” deal reached over Columbia River Basin. A decades-long battle over dams in the Columbia River Basin had a breakthrough Thursday. The Biden administration announced a deal with four tribes in the region and the states of Oregon and Washington that is meant to restore salmon and other fish runs while also looking at the possibility of eventually breaching four of the dams. The settlement agreement calls for a 10-year pause in legal fighting that dates back to the 1990s. It also includes a promise—but not a guarantee—of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds and other money for wild fish restoration in the Columbia River Basin over the next decade, along with support for clean energy production by the tribes, according to a White House statement. While removing the four dams on the lower Snake River would require approval from Congress, environmental groups described the agreement as “historic” and framed it as a major win. Critics, including groups representing utilities, farmers, ports and others who rely on the dams for power, barging goods and irrigation, assailed the deal, saying it was negotiated in secret and neglected their interests.

Picture of the Week

NJ TRANSIT rail service is subject to up to 45 minute delays between Newark Penn and PSNY, due to Police activity near Newark Penn Station. NJ TRANSIT rail tickets and passes are being cross-honored by PATH and Hoboken, Newark Penn and 33rd Street New York.

Police activity: pic.twitter.com/XrtIEK5ZGH

— NJ TRANSIT (@NJTRANSIT) December 14, 2023

“That New Jersey Transit service was delayed was not all that unusual. The reason on Thursday, however, was something out of the wild, wild West,” reported The New York Times. A bull made its way onto a track at Newark Penn Station during the morning commute and caused trains to be delayed by as much as 45 minutes before it was captured in a parking lot almost three miles away. The bull will be taken in by a local animal sanctuary, police said. There are multiple slaughterhouses in Newark, though it wasn’t immediately clear if one was responsible for the loose animal. The agency is the third-busiest transit system in the country, behind the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad networks run by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority. It provides about 270 million passenger trips each year.

Government in Numbers

$1.8 billion

The amount that Washington state estimates it has raised through the sale of allowances to polluting businesses at carbon auctions this year. The state Department of Ecology announced Wednesday the results of its last quarterly auction of the year. It marked the completion of the first year of a program that’s intended to put the state on a 27-year path toward little to no greenhouse gas emissions. In all, more than 41 million carbon allowances have been sold. Each allowance represents one metric ton of emissions from the state’s biggest greenhouse-gas polluters. The revenue in the program is intended to be invested in projects that help reduce climate-warming emissions, such as clean energy projects led by tribal nations, air quality monitoring in communities near polluting industries and electrifying transit. Some of the dollars will go to Washingtonians to help them buy heat pumps, electric bikes and cars, among other things.