Sen. Brandon Creighton has filed bills that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion policies related to hiring and programming, while creating ways for parents to complain about violations to the DEI ban.
A top Texas senator filed legislation Monday that would extend the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to K-12 public schools.
Sen. Brandon Creighton, the Conroe Republican who chairs the Senate Committee on Education K-16, introduced both Senate Bill 12 and Senate Bill 1565 after Gov. Greg Abbott expressed support in his State of the State address earlier this month for Texas banning diversity practices across its more than 1,200 public school districts.
The introductory text in the legislation suggests school districts that fail to comply with the proposed DEI ban could lose out on funding, but neither bills specify how that would happen. Public schools receive funding primarily from local property taxes and the state budget.
Following the bill filing Monday, Erin Daly Wilson, the communications director for Creighton’s office, told The Texas Tribune that the bill would not withhold funding from school districts that violate the law.
SB 12, dubbed by Creighton the “Parental Bill of Rights,” would still make it illegal for Texas school districts to factor in diversity, equity and inclusion in hiring and employment decisions. It would prevent schools from developing policies, programs and training that reference race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation. It would require districts to create policies for disciplining employees who engage in or assign DEI-related tasks to others. And it would ban classroom instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation.
SB 1565 builds on that proposal by allowing parents to submit complaints to principals about alleged DEI violations and requiring school officials to offer parents an explanation of their response to the complaint. Parents could appeal the school’s response to the Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, who the bill requires to assign an arbitrator to review the complaint and conduct a hearing.
If education officials rule against a school district, the measure would require the superintendent to testify before the State Board of Education about the findings and the number of complaints against that district.
Neither of the proposals would prevent schools “from acknowledging or teaching the significance of state and federal holidays or commemorative months” or teaching how those holidays or months fit into Texas and U.S. history, according to the legislation.
The Texas Tribune reached out to several school districts to discuss the proposals Wednesday. At least one declined to comment, while others did not respond immediately.
Texas school districts oversee offices and programs responsible for helping ensure students of color, children learning English, kids from immigrant families, students with disabilities and others receive support and feel included on their campuses. Children of color comprise the overwhelming majority of Texas’ 5.5 million student population.
During the 2023 legislative session, Texas passed a law banning diversity offices, programs and training at publicly-funded universities. The law has caused confusion and fear among university employees and students, while colleges have shuttered DEI offices and efforts. Those offices also aimed to help Black, Latino, LGBTQ+ and other underrepresented students adjust to life on college campuses and foster a sense of community among their peers.
Abbott has since called on lawmakers to ensure that “no taxpayer dollars will be used to fund DEI” in K-12 public education.
“Schools must not push woke agendas on our kids,” Abbott said during his State of the State address in early February. “Schools are for education, not indoctrination.”
Those efforts mirror attempts to eliminate diversity at the federal level. On Feb. 14, the U.S. Department of Education issued a letter to schools across the country giving them two weeks to ban such efforts on their campuses and threatening a loss of funding if schools don’t comply. That window of time ends Friday.
Republicans nationally and in Texas often refer to any school activities attempting to create a more inclusive environment for children — such as teaching about systemic racism or allowing students to check out library books that center LGBTQ+ characters — as so-called “woke” liberal indoctrination.
State officials’ attempts to extend the diversity ban come as lawmakers continue to push for greater control over public schools and to allow taxpayer dollars to flow toward private ones. In 2021, the state passed a law limiting how Texas schools can teach America’s history of slavery and racism. The law instructs schools to teach those topics as “deviations from, betrayals of, or failures to live up to the authentic founding principles of the United States, which include liberty and equality.”
The governor and top officials in both the Texas House and Senate have made passing a school voucher bill their top priority this legislative session. At the same time, top Texas officials have expressed a desire to expand Christianity in the classroom. Lawmakers have filed legislation this session that would require schools to display the Ten Commandments, which Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has declared a priority. Patrick is also prioritizing a bill that would grant school districts the power to provide students and employees “with an opportunity to participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text” every school day.
A nod to Texas lawmakers’ aim to also expand so-called parental rights, the DEI bill filed Monday would also allow parents to apply to remove their children from their local school district to attend another. Under most circumstances currently, a child must attend the school district closest to where the student lives. In SB 12, the district the family applies to could deny the transfer request under certain circumstances, like if it lacks space to accommodate the child or if it has a policy prohibiting students with a criminal background.
The Senate Education Committee will hold a public hearing for both SB 12 and SB 1565 on Thursday.
Source: Jaden Edison, The Texas Tribune
Photo Credit: Passing period at United South High School in Laredo on Oct. 23, 2018. Credit: Rachel Zein for The Texas Tribune
