At its November meeting, the USG Board of Regents struck a blow to DEI ideology – without ever citing it by name – by announcing a statewide policy for hirings, promotions, and tenure that are “free of ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths, including diversity statements.”
While the board’s agenda, which runs 103 pages long, never uses use the acronym “DEI,” it is clear from the agenda’s language the race-based ideology is being pushed out in everything from hiring practices to student orientation.
“No institution orientation or training for students or employees may include ideological tests, affirmations, or oaths, including diversity statements,” the agenda also states.
Lauren Daniel, of Frontline Policy Action, tells AFN merit should be the only consideration for hirings and promotions for college and university faculty.
"If we hire them based on DEI, and they come in and they don't have the merits,” she says, “what you would expect, academically, out of them? How long is the university supposed to allow that?"
Death of ideological 'diversity statements'
The fundamental tenets of DEI, however, weigh a person’s sex and race, and even sexual orientation and disability, to create more “equity” and rectify a white-dominated power structure. So a Hispanic lesbian professor, for example, would move ahead of a straight white male who is buried at the bottom of a diversity-driven pyramid because of his “white privilege” and slave-owning ancestors.
The practice of requiring “diversity statements” is another tool used by left-wing campuses to weed out potential employees and future students who lean right politically, which is why the agenda for the Board of Regents mentions the phrase eight times.
“No applicant for admission,” the document states, “shall be asked to or required to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about political beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles, as a condition for admission.”
AFN similarly reported the University of Michigan is dropping diversity statements from its campus, too. The university cited a faculty survey in which professors view them as a “litmus test” that gauges whether a faculty member’s views are “politically acceptable.”
Professor warns about enforcement
In a related story about Georgia at The College Fix, the education watchdog interviewed a Kennesaw State professor, David Bray. An outspoken critic of DEI in the state’s higher education, he called the vow to demolish DEI “words on paper” until the Board of Regents follows through on its new policy by enforcing it statewide.
“We have the numbers to see how much money is used to infect our universities with politically left dogma, all under the guise of DEI,” Bray told the Fix. “So there’s no excuse for why the USG doesn’t have the financial resources to do the right thing by all Georgia taxpayers.”
The College Fix also received a statement from the USG Board of Regents. The statement reads:
These proposed updates strengthen USG’s academic communities. They allow institutions to foster a campus environment where people have the freedom to share their thoughts and learn from one another through objective scholarship and inquiry. They reflect an unyielding obligation to protect freedom, provide quality higher education and promote student success
Daniel tells AFN that Frontline Policy is applauding the Board of Regents for not only ditching DEI ideology but for embracing U.S. history, too. Beginning in the 2025-2026 school year, students will study the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and numerous other historical documents.
"If the goal of education, of college education, is to put out individuals who contribute to society,” Daniel says, “they should have a base level of what America is, what freedoms we have, why it matters and all of that I think is vital."
