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After moves by Gov. Mike Braun and President Donald Trump to end initiatives promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion — or DEI — policies, Indiana lawmakers could also soon restrict or ban them in K-12 schools and universities.
The Senate Judiciary committee passed two bills on Wednesday aimed at ending mandatory training and instruction that proponents say propagate stereotypes and discrimination.
Senate Bill 289 focuses on state agencies and public K-12 schools, and would require schools to publish curriculum and training materials related to diversity, bias, and other concepts online. It would end mandatory DEI-related training and prohibit schools from requiring students and employees to affirm a list of concepts related to race, gender, and other characteristics.
Senate Bill 235, meanwhile, would prohibit colleges and universities from funding DEI programs and offices and change licensing requirements in health care.
These echo an executive order signed by Trump on Tuesday that directed federal agencies to eliminate programs and initiatives related to DEI, as well as an order from Braun last week to replace diversity, equity, and inclusion in state government with “merit, excellence, and innovation.”
They reflect ongoing hostility to DEI in conservative circles. They also follow years of similar controversy over whether schools in Indiana and nationwide have been teaching students critical race theory, a phrase that often became a catchall for discussions of race.
Supporters of the two Senate bills from Republicans say they would once again elevate the importance of individual students’ academic achievement and skills, while reducing the extent to which schools and universities unfairly and simplistically divide people into groups.
But critics countered that the measures would make it harder for teachers to share a complex and truthful account of history, and also ignore systemic challenges that some students face more than others.
Both bills now head to the full Senate for a vote.
Bill would emphasize individual merit in education
SB 289 is directed at public K-12 schools and state agencies, and requires these entities to publish online all of their curricular, instructional, and training materials related to nondiscrimination, diversity, equity, inclusion, race, ethnicity, sex, and bias.
It also bans mandatory training and instruction on a list of concepts including that any race, sex, ethnicity, religion, or national origin is superior to any other, or that members of any group should be blamed for historical events caused by other members of the same group.
An amendment adopted by lawmakers allows the state attorney general to file an action to compel a school to comply.
The purpose is to require schools and the state government to consider individuals on their own merits, proponents said.
“People should be respected based on their own unique characteristic life skills and experiences,” said bill author Sen. Gary Byrne.
The proposal has similarities to a failed bill from 2022 that would have banned a list of “divisive concepts” related to race and racism from Indiana classrooms and required schools to post their related instructional materials online. Teachers and schools vocally opposed that bill due to the additional workload it would create, as well as its potential to chill class discussions.
Notably, Byrne’s bill attempts to set limits on its own prohibitions. For example, the bill says it may not be construed to ban discussions of how stereotypes are wrongfully embraced, or of scientific studies that reveal disparities between the aforementioned groups.
But teachers said in testimony that the new bill would be just as chilling as bills from years past.
“This bill is an effort by our state government to control the past and how it is taught in Indiana classrooms,” said Randy Hudgins, a social studies teacher. “What problems is this bill here to solve, and what evidence do we have that these problems are occurring in Hoosier classrooms?”
Asked by Democratic Sen. Greg Taylor if the bill would allow him to teach about Martin Luther King Jr. or the Holocaust as required by state standards, Hudgins said both topics would prove tricky under the bill’s provisions on race, religion, and ethnicity.
“I would feel like I was walking on eggshells in teaching [the Holocaust],” he said.
Jerell Blakeley, director of government, community, racial & social justice for the Indiana State Teachers Association, connected this year’s pushback against DEI to previous efforts to ban critical race theory. He said some critics of DEI and critical race theory use the words without understanding the definitions.
“They get their talking points from media outlets that are sort of demonizing these words that are really deeply committed to the most basic fundamentally American principles of all — fairness, justice, and nondiscrimination,” Blakeley said.
He added that Indiana lawmakers took steps recently to increase the diversity of the teaching force.
Testimony and questions also focused on the origin of the term DEI, after questions from Sen. James Buck about when it came to be. Some of the practices rolled back in Trump’s order were put in place by an executive order by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.
Asked to trace the history of the principles of DEI, Russ Skiba, a professor emeritus at Indiana University and founder of the University Alliance for Racial Justice, also pointed to origins in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and advocacy for students with disabilities.
“Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not a curriculum. They are values,” Skiba said.
He pointed out that the bill could also negatively affect teacher training, recruitment, and diversity. Lawmakers would be “making advocacy for fairness and civil rights impossible” in Indiana whether they banned DEI outright or just sought to punish it, he said.
Just one person spoke in support of the bill during testimony. Kileen Lindgren, legal policy manager for the Pacific Legal Foundation, a national law firm, said it creates transparency, and furthers the equal protection goals of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“I don’t know how we can value the individual when we’re lumping people into categories,” Lindgren said.
DEI offices, staff at universities banned in bill
The second bill, Senate Bill 235, deals with state agencies, colleges, universities, and licensing boards.
It says higher education institutions may not establish DEI offices or hire DEI officers or consultants. It also removes DEI provisions from health professional licensing requirements, and requires medical programs to use a standardized test for admissions.
That bill provides a lengthy definition of DEI that includes practices that influence the composition of employees with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity, or provide special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, sex, color, or ethnicity
It further defines DEI as practices that would promote “as the official position of an agency a particular opinion referencing unconscious or implicit: bias; cultural appropriation; allyship; transgender ideology; microaggressions; group marginalization; antiracism; systemic oppression; social justice; intersectionality; neopronouns; heteronormativity; disparate impact; gender theory; racial or sexual privilege.”
One speaker who backed the bill was Allon Friedman, a professor of medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine who said he was speaking only in a personal capacity. Friedman said DEI practices in the medical field dehumanize patients by sorting people into categories, and de-emphasize academic excellence by requiring schools to use pass/fail rather than A-F grades.
“It undermines the foundational assumption that individuals are chosen to become doctors based on academic and holistic excellence,” Friedman said.
Friedman also said DEI leads to a “hostile mindset.” He said he experienced this firsthand after writing an op-ed in 2021 arguing against the hiring of a DEI officer at Carmel schools and receiving negative responses to it.
A representative for Indiana University adopted a neutral stance during testimony, saying the school was working with the author of the bill, Sen. Tyler Johnson, to refine some of the language.
But Gwen Kelley, an education researcher who works with the NAACP, pointed out the bill could end up requiring significant revisions to Indiana education code, the provisions of which include references to diversity and cultural responsiveness.
“Let’s reject the fear and embrace the truth,” Kelley said. “Only by addressing systemic issues head on can we create a system that works for all.”
Aleksandra Appleton covers Indiana education policy and writes about K-12 schools across the state. Contact her at aappleton@chalkbeat.org.
