Missouri senator proposes bill to combat 'discriminatory ideology' by ending diversity statements

A Missouri state senator has authored a bill to prohibit public colleges and universities from requiring diversity statements as part of their hiring and admissions processes.

According to a bill summary, S.B. 326 “prohibits state colleges and universities and proprietary schools from enforcing a ‘discriminatory ideology,’ defined in the act as an ideology that promotes the differential treatment of any individual or group of individuals based on immutable characteristics of race, color, religion, sex, gender, ethnicity, national origin, or ancestry.”

[RELATED: University of Wisconsin–Madison faces federal complaint over race-based scholarship]

Universities sometimes require job applicants to submit a statement about their commitments to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) principles. 

Currently, applicants “are expected to commit to shaping their teaching and research priorities around DEI’s radical ideology,” bill author and State Sen. Ben Brown said in a hearing on Tuesday, April 15, according to The Missouri Independent.

“There would have to be proof that someone was given preferential treatment due to the statement that was submitted,” he clarified in an interview with the outlet. “So absent that evidence, it wouldn’t really have any impact on current practices.”

Some senators have questioned the need for the bill and whether Missouri universities are requiring diversity statements, but Brown says that universities have had such practices in the past.

“It is something that has been required,” he also said. “I imagine [it] would be in the future as well as things change and something that I feel we need to prevent now.”

[RELATED: Caltech removes DEI language from administrator title while preserving DEI office]

Sen. Brown has made prior attempts to combat DEI in higher education.

“Racial discrimination should have no place in Missouri,” Brown told Campus Reform after introducing similar legislation last year. “This is especially true in our taxpayer-funded public institutions.”

“DEI has been discredited again and again as a useful framework,” he continued. “It is, instead, a rigid ideology that opposes our best American values of equal opportunity, individual dignity, and equality under the law.”

Last month, the University of California system decided to eliminate diversity statements for new employees.

Some states have passed legislation prohibiting public universities from using the practice; Idaho Governor Brad Little, for example, signed such a measure last year. 

Campus Reform contacted Sen. Brown for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.