Austin, TX
Texas ban on university diversity efforts provides glimpse of future across GOP-led states – Maryland Daily Record
AUSTIN, Texas — The dim lighting and vacant offices were the first clues.
Other changes struck Nina Washington, a senior at the University of Texas, when she returned to her favorite study spot from winter break. The words “Multicultural Center” had been taken off the wall, erasing an effort begun in the late 1980s to serve historically marginalized communities on campus. The center’s staff members were gone, its student groups dissolved.
“Politics, behaviors and emotions are returning to the old ways,” said Washington, who as a Black woman found a sense of community at the center.
The void in the heart of the nearly 52,000-student campus is one of many changes rippling across college campuses in Texas, where one of the nation’s most sweeping bans on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives took effect Jan. 1.
At least five other states have passed their own bans and Republican lawmakers in at least 19 states are pursuing various restrictions on diversity initiatives, an issue they hope will mobilize their voters this election year.
With over 600,000 students enrolled at more than 30 public universities across the state, the rollout in Texas offers a large-scale glimpse of what lies ahead for public higher education without the initiatives designed to make minorities feel less isolated and white students more prepared for careers that require working effectively with people of different backgrounds.
At the University of Texas’ flagship campus in Austin, the state’s second most populous public university, only 4.5% of the student population is Black and 25.2% is Hispanic, numbers some students fear will drop as they struggle to adjust in an atmosphere of fear about what they can say and do.
The law signed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott bans public higher education institutions from influencing hiring practices with respect to race, sex, color or ethnicity, and prohibits promoting “differential” or “preferential” treatment or “special” benefits for people based on these categories. Also forbidden are training and activities conducted “in reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”
Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton, who authored the bill, said in an emailed comment Tuesday that DEI efforts claim they are meant to increase diversity, “but after close examination, they are an effort to inject politics and promote cancel-culture into our colleges and universities.”
Time will tell. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, whose nine members are appointed by the governor, is required to inform lawmakers every two years about the ban’s impact on admissions, academic progress and graduation rates of students by race, sex and ethnicity.
To comply with the law, the cultural identity centers that admissions offices promoted to attract minorities are now closed. University websites have scrubbed out references to “diversity” and “inclusion,” replacing them with “access” and “community engagement.” Staff have been reassigned to new roles.
“People want to keep their jobs, but many of us were trained to do this work around diversity, inclusion and equity and were hired specifically to do that,” said Patrick Smith, vice president of the Texas Faculty Association.
Professors are fearful, editing their syllabi and watching their speech, as they navigate the boundaries of compliance, Smith said.
As for the multicultural center in the student union on the Austin campus, the university announced it will consider how best to use the space “to continue building community for all Longhorns.”
Meanwhile, although the law explicitly exempts academics, uncertainty over its scope also has professors and students wondering how to comply.
“To know that your speech is monitored and basically censored if you do the kind of work that I do, that is a strange feeling,” said Karma Chavez, a professor of Mexican American and Latino/a Studies at the university.
The Hispanic Faculty Association, of which Chavez is the co-president, has been prohibited from meeting during working hours or using campus spaces without paying a fee. They can’t even communicate through university email, and groups affiliated with the university cannot co-sponsor events with them.
The limits have Chavez catching herself in meetings or when mentoring a student before she speaks on race or ethnicity, because she is unsure of what she can say and when.
“I don’t think I am self-censoring, I think I have been censored by the state legislature,” Chavez said.
University officials shuttered a group aimed at providing resources for students who qualified for the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Chavez said the DACA group wasn’t specifically helping any of the classifications of people, so “it tells you how widely, how extensively they are interpreting the law.”
Some student groups whose university funding has been prohibited are struggling with the financial burden of maintaining their identity communities and continuing cultural traditions.
University of Texas senior Christian Mira, financial officer for the Queer Trans Black Indigenous People Of Color Agency, said the group lost its space in the multicultural center and has been aggressively fundraising through alumni, local supporters and community outreach. They hope to keep supporting a lively community of students with signature events including a block party, leadership institutes and a ball, although they’re not sure where.
“College is already a difficult experience, so having people around you who you depend on to have that kind of community — it made students feel safe, it made students feel like they could succeed on campus,” Mira said.
Alexander De Jesus, who attends UT-Dallas and is an advocate with Texas Students for DEI, said they prepared for months in ways big and small, such as more clearly advertising that anyone can use a closet of clothes frequented by students who are transitioning.
“It has also been stressful telling other students, ‘Hey, keep your head up,’” De Jesus said. “It is difficult to say that when you see a climate of fear developing and when you see people who are justifiably angered about traditional pathways or politics or people not listening to them.”
Acacia Coronado reports for The Associated Press.
If you’re still looking for last minute gift ideas, how about a box of steaks this Christmas? That’s what 44 Farms has been offering up since 1909 here in Texas. Good Day Austin’s Tierra Neubaum has more from Lockhart.
Mapping Chaos
Six months into his second term as president, Donald Trump was nervous about the chances for keeping a Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives after the 2026 elections. So in July, Trump demanded that Texas Republicans discard decades of precedent and redistrict the state’s congressional districts in the middle of the decade. Texas Republicans were more than happy to deliver.
The maps redrew the districts of some of the most effective Black leaders in the country and crammed Austin’s 35th and 37th congressional districts into one, to remove either Rep. Greg Casar or Rep. Lloyd Doggett from office. To stop the redistricting, 56 Democratic House members, including Austin Reps. John Bucy, Gina Hinojosa, James Talarico, Donna Howard, and Lulu Flores, left Texas to deny Republicans the quorum necessary to finalize the gerrymander.
The Dems stayed away two weeks, long enough to educate voters nationwide about what was happening. Then they returned and were steamrolled by Republicans, who approved the redistricting plan on a party line vote. (The GOP majority twisted the knife by enacting punitive new measures to discourage future resistance from their colleagues.) A federal court blocked the gerrymandered map last month, ruling that it illegally discriminates against people of color. But the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily paused the lower court’s ruling while the legal battle rages on, allowing the map to stand for the midterm election. For now at least, Trump got exactly what he asked for. – Brant Bingamon
Unthinkable Loss
Within hours, a torrent of rain quickly overwhelmed the banks of the Guadalupe River over the Independence Day weekend. Fast-rising floodwaters and swollen rivers destroyed multiple towns and took over 135 lives, mostly in Kerr County, to become one of the most devastating natural disasters in Texas history. At Camp Mystic, an all-girls sleepaway summer camp along the Guadalupe in Hunt, 25 children and three staff members were lost in the deluge.
In those first days, the casualty count rose horrifically, and then slowed as the missing were accounted for. In the days and weeks that followed, Central Texans pitched in to aid their neighbors, first by clearing debris and searching for survivors, then by gathering resources and raising funds for those impacted. Then, Texans began to point to their lawmakers, asking what the state should have done to prevent the tragedy. In the second special legislative session, the Texas Legislature addressed some of those failings, investing in flood sirens and evacuation plans. The parents who lost their children at Camp Mystic are still in an active lawsuit against the summer camp, suing for failing to evacuate the campers, gross negligence, and wrongful death, even as the camp seeks to reopen next summer. – Sammie Seamon
The Lege Marches Texas Farther Right …
With the GOP now even more empowered to pass legislation, no matter how overtly some bills appeared unconstitutional and aligned with far-right, Christian nationalist values, the 89th legislative session (and the two special sessions that followed) greenlit a host of bills targeting public education, the immigrant and queer communities, abortion access, and more.
A requirement to hang the Ten Commandments and dedicate prayer and Bible reading time in public school classrooms. A law that blocks Texans from using the bathroom aligned with their gender identity in public schools, universities, and any government-run building. Police must partner with ICE in 2026. A bill that takes away librarians’ authority to approve school library books, when ever-more titles containing diverse perspectives have been banned by the state. The creation of a bounty hunter system that allows a next-door neighbor to tattle on people trying to access abortion pills. While most laws went into effect Sept. 1, more became effective as recently as Dec. 4, and advocates say their effects have already begun to be felt by Texans. – Sammie Seamon
… and Abbott Finally Gets His School Vouchers
For Texas students, parents, and school districts, another catastrophe in this year’s legislative session was the state’s creation of private school vouchers. The voucher bill, signed into law in May, will allow parents to take approximately $10,000 of taxpayer money per child from the state’s coffers to spend on their children’s private schooling. Applications will open in the spring.
The voucher vote was an epochal loss for public school supporters who had fought since the 1950s to stop previous versions of the measure. For the Republican leaders who championed it, particularly Gov. Greg Abbott, the vote concluded a years-long campaign to impose their will not just on the electorate, who were never hugely supportive of vouchers, but also on their fellow Republicans, particularly those from rural areas, who had crossed the aisle to vote with Democrats to keep vouchers from becoming law.
Advocates say the program will slowly drain funds from schools that are already underfunded, hurting poor students and undermining public education in general. The state allocated $1 billion for the program in 2026, but that figure is expected to balloon to $5 billion by the beginning of the next decade. – Brant Bingamon
One Big Barfing Sound
If there are two traits you can count on from the Trump administration, they are stupidity and cruelty. First, the name of budget reconciliation measure HR 1 was nonsensical: The president’s lackeys have called it One Big Beautiful Bill, making it the nonsensical One Big Beautiful Bill Act when it passed because they are idiots who don’t understand how words or the legislative process work. But beyond the stupidity was the cruelty of vast spending cuts, including an estimated $155.3 million gouging of promised finances for the City of Austin alone. The list included FEMA grant to improve flood protection for power and water treatment plants, money to cap and cover stretches of the I-35 project, and an all-out attack on plans to decrease the city’s reliance on fossil fuels, plus there’s the massive local impact of cutting funds for federal agencies and programs like Medicaid and SNAP. Of course, it’s Texas’ fault: HR 1 was authored by Lubbock Republican Jodey C. Arrington. – Richard Whittaker
Stuck in Neutral
Maybe we’re just getting older and grumpier, but we seem to encounter construction on every trip we take around town. Let’s not talk too much about the I-35 expansion, which will be a Top 10 story for the next decade or so (sigh). To make matters worse, the prospect of those caps over the highway are looking less impressive after the fed took back $100 million slated for the project (another casualty of the OBBBA). Remember the flurry of excitement when the Travis County Commissioners Court voted in October to fund a study on the feasibility of a rail line between ATX and SATX? Last we heard, that plan could be completed before the I-35 project but was counting on a big investment from the federal government. Sounds pretty unfeasible to us. Those with an even better memory will remember Project Connect’s rail plan that locals voted to fund in 2020. This year the city solicited proposals for the multibillion-dollar final design and construction contract. Fingers crossed. – James Renovitch
Prop Flop
It didn’t seem particularly controversial when the Council approved a budget last August which necessitated a tax rate election. The election, dubbed Proposition Q, asked voters to raise their property taxes by an average of around $200 per year.
But Prop Q got controversial in a hurry. In October, the Statesman published a series of articles questioning spending by city leaders on lunches and travel and focusing on the city’s $1 million logo. Opponents of Prop Q threatened lawsuits against the political action campaign supporting the measure, argued that the higher taxes would worsen the city’s affordability crisis, and complained that the money generated by Prop Q would support the city’s “homeless industrial complex.” Gov. Greg Abbott kept the focus on the homeless, sending state troopers to clear out homeless camps in the weeks before the vote. Attorney General Ken Paxton threatened to sue the city’s largest provider of housing for homeless people, Foundation Communities, falsely suggesting that the group’s donations to the Prop Q PAC “might be illegal.”
In the end, Prop Q was defeated 63-37%. A revised city budget passed on Nov. 20, which reduced funding for homelessness, public safety, parks, and social services. Now, city leaders wait to see what they’re going to have to cut next year. – Brant Bingamon
AISD Makes Unpopular School Closure Decisions
In early September, the Texas Education Agency told Austin ISD administration that 33 of its campuses had fallen into dangerous waters, receiving failing accountability scores from the state agency for low STAAR performance. The TEA also gave 24 schools turnaround plans, giving them the option to close down or totally rehire faculty and revamp curriculum. The district has also found itself in dire financial straits: With declining enrollment, a lack of state funding, and half of their budget paid out in recapture payments, they’re predicting to run out of money by next school year. If the district fails to raise student performance, the TEA could take over management of AISD, as they did Fort Worth ISD in October.
In early October, the district decided to propose school closures to save money and respond to the TEA’s requirement for turnaround plans. In the weeks that followed, students and their families protested the dismantling of their neighborhood school communities, hoisting signs and chanting outside of TEA and AISD’s headquarters. Then, three schools were taken back off the closure list, leading to accusations that the district was favoring the loudest parents (which the district denied). On Nov. 21, after hours of rigorous debate, the AISD Board of Trustees ultimately voted to close eight elementary schools, two middle schools, and International High School next school year. – Sammie Seamon
ICE’s Dastardly Drive to Deport
This year has been unlike any other for a multitude of reasons, many of which can be attributed to the Trump administration’s aggressive decision-making – one of the most intense being the rollout of ICE agents across the nation, which Trump promised during his 2024 campaign. He stayed true to his word, deploying ICE agents on the very first day following his inauguration. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, Texas currently has the most ICE detainees – 17,696 as of Nov. 28 – in the nation.
On April 1, ICE and other federal and state agents raided an Austin suburb Airbnb, where nearly 50 people were arrested, some of whom were children. The raid came as an attempt to deport members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, the agencies involved claim, though advocates have said there has been no evidence provided that suggests any of the half a hundred individuals had any gang affiliation, but rather were targeted merely based on physical appearance.
Whether it’s 50 potential gang members or just one immigrant, such as the Boston student who was planning to fly home to Austin to see her family for Thanksgiving, only to be arrested and deported after she arrived for her flight, ICE has been relentless in its forceful attempts at deportation throughout the year. – Joe Ellett
Water Woes (and a Win)
It’s now a well-known and troubling truth: Texas, with our projected growth and draining aquifers, is running out of water. Moreover, the move of big tech to Austin and greater Central Texas is placing even more strain on our energy grid and water resources: By 2030, data centers are projected to multiply roughly tenfold across the state, with the average center using 300,000 gallons of water a day. Texas, which is currently experiencing higher temperatures than during the Dust Bowl, will face only further water loss from evaporation and hotter soil as drought conditions worsen with climate change.
On Nov. 4, Texans voted on Prop 4, a 20-year investment in the future of our state’s water availability, one that will funnel $1 billion annually out of state sales tax revenue toward water conservation and production projects. These projects include fixing leaky pipes, wastewater reuse, seawater desalination, and produced water reuse from fracking, plus others listed in the State Water Plan. – Sammie Seamon
Burnt Orange Bleeds Red
When far-right thought leader Chris Rufo urged conservatives to “lay siege” to UT at a campus talk in 2023, it was hard to imagine anyone taking him seriously. Two years later, it’s remarkable how much Rufo’s allies have accomplished.
Last year, UT eliminated diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and restricted students’ rights of free speech and assembly. Professors and administrators left in unprecedented numbers, including the president and provost, who were replaced with allies of Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.
This year, Republicans approved SB 37, which ended the longstanding practice of including professors in choosing the university’s leaders and setting policy for the school, handing that power over to the board of regents. SB 37 also created the “Office of the Ombudsman,” an overseer appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott to investigate professors accused of violating state law.
SB 37 also gave the board of regents the power to decide which courses are taught at UT. The board is currently reviewing the content of hundreds of courses concerned in one way or another with gender and sexuality. Professors are bracing for changes in the curriculum and for the consolidation of programs like Women’s and Gender Studies, African Diaspora Studies, and other ethnic studies in the College of Liberal Arts. They’re also awaiting a decision from university leaders on the Trump compact, an offer promising federal research money in exchange for supporting Trump’s political agenda. Of the nine universities offered the deal, only UT expressed enthusiasm, demonstrating how far right the school’s leaders now lean. – Brant Bingamon
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This article appears in December 19 • 2025.
A Texas spokesperson told the American-Statesman that Guilbeau will not participate in the Longhorns’ Citrus Bowl matchup against Michigan on Dec. 31.
With Guilbeau opting out, the Texas secondary is now down two players who started for most of the regular season. All-American safety Michael Taaffe will also be skipping the Citrus Bowl in order to prepare for the draft.
A native of Port Arthur, Guilbeau is out of collegiate eligibility, leaving the professional ranks as the only route to extend his playing career.
Guilbeau, listed at 6-foot, 183 pounds, started the first 10 games of the season for the Longhorns as a corner before Texas largely replaced him with younger talent. He finished the season with 40 tackles and an interception.
Guilbeau has contributed for the Longhorns since his freshman season in 2021, appearing in 43 games throughout his career. His versatility could appeal to NFL teams. Guilbeau spent the 2024 season as the Longhorns’ primary slot corner before moving out wide.
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