Mississippi lawmakers are poised to ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs from K-12 schools in addition to universities, while the creation of a taskforce to study “efficiency” in the state’s higher education system would likely be delayed.
The Senate has passed an amended version of a House bill to shutter or ban DEI programs in all of the state’s public schools, a policy Mississippi’s Republican-controlled Legislature has advanced as President Donald Trump targets DEI across the federal government. The bill’s authors have argued the measure will elevate merit in education.
Legislative Democrats, most of whom are Black, have argued DEI programs were created to correct centuries of discrimination against minorities and women, and that eliminating them would set Mississippi back.
The Senate tweaked House Bill 1193 before passing the legislation with a party-line vote Tuesday, offering two key concessions to the House. The Senate agreed to expand the ban on DEI to K-12 schools. The Senate’s original bill only focused on universities. The upper chamber also agreed to drop a provision that would have created a taskforce to study how the state’s higher education system can become more efficient.
Some feared the information compiled by the taskforce could later be used to justify closing or merging universities, which the provision’s author, Senate Universities and Colleges Chairwoman Nicole Boyd denied.
The elimination of the efficiency taskforce the Senate initially proposed would mark the end of an effort to tie restrictions on DEI to a broader review of the state’s higher education system.
Boyd, a Republican from Oxford who had envisioned marrying anti-DEI legislation to the taskforce, said she plans to hold committee hearings this fall to examine some of the issues she hoped the taskforce would probe.
“Those are issues that we definitely are still going to look at, we’re just going to choose the path of doing that through the committee process,” Boyd said.
The Senate-approved legislation otherwise inserted much of the language from a separate anti-DEI measure it passed into the House bill. The move likely sets up negotiations in a conference committee later in the session. Alternatively, the House could opt to concur with the Senate’s changes and send the bill to Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk for his signature.
On Tuesday, Republican House Universities Chairman Rep. Donnie Scoggin, who would likely be a House negotiator, said he believed the lower chamber could agree to the Senate-approved legislation. But Scoggin cautioned that he wanted to read the amended version of the bill in depth first.
If the House declines to concur with the Senate’s changes in favor of negotiating further in a conference committee, the sticking points would center on how the law would be enforced and how DEI is defined, lawmakers said.
The Senate removed a sweeping list of “divisive concepts” the House aimed to ban from being taught in classrooms. The far-reaching House legislation would have also dictated how schools define gender. The Senate’s altered proposal instead introduces a definition of DEI as programs designed to change the composition of a school’s faculty or student body based on identity.
The move is part of a push to ensure the admissions and hiring processes at Mississippi universities are solely merit-based, said Republican Sen. Tyler McCaughn, one of the Senate version’s sponsors.
Sen. John Horhn, a Democrat from Jackson, said Mississippi would lose ground on longstanding efforts to make the state a more welcoming place for minorities.
“For a piece of legislation like this to come up, it says we are interested in turning the clock back,” Horhn said. “We’ve had enough of this fairness mumbo jumbo, and even though we’re calling what we’re doing being fair, we’re returning to unfairness.”
The Senate and House also diverge on how they would enforce a DEI ban. The Senate would direct universities to develop an internal complaint and investigative process for looking into those accused of violating the law. Only students, faculty and contractors would be able to file complaints.
The original House bill threatened to withhold state money based on complaints that anyone, not just students and faculty, could lodge. It would empower people to sue schools accused of violating the law.
DEI programs have come under fire mostly from conservatives, who say the programs divide people into categories of victims and oppressors and infuse left-wing ideology into campus life. Proponents say the programs have been critical to combatting discrimination and ensuring institutions meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations.
The deadline for the House to concur with the Senate’s changes is March 27.
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