Texas DEI ban ties up 131 scholarships

A Report in Dallas Morning News notes that consequently of the law, 131 scholarships were frozen or modified across the state, including 80 at Texas A&M and 45 on the University of Texas.

The law was intended to finish programs comparable to diversity training and similar initiatives in schools, however it also led to varsities investigating and sometimes freezing the awarding of scholarships to non-white students – even privately funded ones.

In some cases, the wording of scholarship eligibility is modified from “minority” to “disadvantaged.” Other colleges are making larger changes. For example, the Biotechnology Diversity Scholarship at Texas A&M (since it had the word “diversity” within the title) and a community-funded scholarship for black female athletes named after two students who died in a automobile crash were placed on hold by the school.

“The scholarships have nothing to do with this diversity program or state law,” said Sam Butts, the daddy of one among the killed students, who Morning news“We are disappointed because this scholarship was set up to help minorities.”

State Senator Brandon Creighton, who authored the bill, said in a press release to the newspaper that SB17 isn’t intended to affect scholarships from private organizations and that “the bill makes clear that taxpayer dollars should not be spent to provide special benefits based on race, color or ethnicity.”

However, since lots of these scholarships are administered by schools, confusion has arisen.