Texas’ second audit of public faculties’ compliance with the state’s range, fairness and inclusion ban discovered no violations on the College of Texas System and 15 neighborhood faculties, at the same time as conservative activists proceed to accuse a few of conserving DEI-related work alive underneath new names.
The State Auditor’s Workplace report cleared UT System faculties and the neighborhood faculties on one slim query: whether or not they spent state cash in violation of Senate Invoice 17, the 2023 Texas regulation that pressured public faculties to shut DEI workplaces, finish required DEI trainings and cease utilizing range statements in hiring.
The report doesn’t element about what auditors discovered at every campus, what points they raised privately with college leaders or how faculties draw the road between banned DEI work and classroom educating the regulation nonetheless protects.
Randa Safady, UT System’s vice chancellor for exterior relations, stated the personal communications talked about within the report weren’t essentially findings. She stated such language typically means auditors requested about “course of or clarification, not a substantive difficulty.”
UT establishments modified staffing, packages, coaching and spending when the DEI ban took impact, Safady stated. The system additionally up to date its insurance policies and licensed to the Texas Greater Schooling Coordinating Board that every one establishments had been in compliance, she added.
The audit, first reported by KXAN on Thursday, lined all 14 UT System establishments and the next 15 neighborhood faculties:
Alvin Faculty
Amarillo Faculty
Austin Neighborhood Faculty District
Brazosport Faculty
Clarendon Faculty
Faculty of the Mainland
Frank Phillips Faculty
Galveston Faculty
Houston Metropolis Faculty
Lee Faculty
Lone Star Faculty System
San Jacinto Faculty District
South Plains Faculty
Victoria Faculty
Wharton County Junior Faculty
Officers at Austin Neighborhood Faculty District, one of many bigger methods reviewed with practically 44,000 college students enrolled final fall, stated it might proceed to comply with the regulation.
“ACC will proceed to make use of efficient, student-focused practices to assist all college students entry assets and helps they should obtain their educational and workforce targets,” stated Sydney Pruitt, senior media relations coordinator.
Auditors interviewed school workers and reviewed state-funded spending from Sept. 1, 2024, to Aug. 31, 2025. They checked out hiring data, job postings and descriptions, promotion and merit-pay data, coaching, packages, web sites and paperwork associated to former DEI workplaces.
They reviewed samples of such data. The report cautions that the audit’s outcomes shouldn’t be used to attract conclusions about each file at every faculty.
At UT-Austin, for instance, auditors reviewed 25 workers, 25 new hires and 25 promotions or benefit will increase out of 1000’s of data in these classes.
The State Auditor’s Workplace has discovered issues earlier than. Its first audit of the ban, launched in February 2025, flagged Texas A&M College-Central Texas for contracting with a vendor to carry out DEI workplace duties and McLennan Neighborhood Faculty for requiring a brand new worker to take DEI coaching.
Republican leaders spent a lot of final yr accusing universities of failing to completely adjust to the DEI ban. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick threatened price range cuts to state campuses if universities didn’t “kick DEI out of their faculties.” GOP senators later warned they might block funding will increase after claiming that they had discovered “quite a few” violations, although they didn’t publicly establish them.
Ultimately, lawmakers created a sooner solution to examine complaints by creating a brand new ombudsman workplace to behave on written complaints from college students, school and employees who allege their faculty violated the DEI ban. The workplace should notify a faculty’s governing board inside 5 days of a qualifying criticism and might advocate lawmakers block the college from spending state cash till the auditor confirms a violation is addressed.
As of mid-March, none of Texas’ eight public college methods had data exhibiting that they had obtained formal criticism notices from the ombudsman’s workplace, in keeping with public data responses obtained by The Texas Tribune.
Outdoors teams are maintaining the stress too.
Accuracy in Media, a conservative group that makes use of undercover movies, just lately revealed recordings of UT-Austin and UT-Arlington workers.
Within the UT-Austin video, an worker within the division of ladies’s gender and sexuality research stated the DEI ban created extra work for workers however didn’t change educational work. Within the UT-Arlington video, an educational recruiter within the College of Social work stated school nonetheless cowl subjects associated to race and gender however keep away from sure language.
The Tribune reached out to Accuracy in Media for touch upon the audit.
The group’s president, Adam Guillette, issued an announcement saying that “a number of directors at greater than a half-dozen Texas universities have bragged about persevering with their DEI packages, typically in defiance of state regulation.”
“The auditor’s workplace wants to right away handle our findings and difficulty a proof,” Guillette stated.
UT-Austin officers didn’t instantly reply to questions Friday whereas these at UT-Arlington stated leaders investigated after the video circulated on-line.
“The statements mirrored within the video don’t characterize college coverage or observe. In consequence, the worker referenced within the video is now not employed by the college,” stated Jeff Kaplan, UT-Arlington’s director of media relations. He declined to remark additional.
Safady, on the UT System, later added, “Any allegation or criticism that means an establishment shouldn’t be following the regulation is investigated to make sure full compliance with regulation.”
Educational course instruction and scholarly analysis are exempt from the DEI ban.
The Texas Tribune companions with Open Campus on increased training protection.
Disclosure: Amarillo Faculty, Austin Neighborhood Faculty District, Brazosport Faculty and College of Texas System have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partly by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full listing of them right here.
This text first appeared on The Texas Tribune.
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