Texas proves DEI programs aren't just wasteful – they've failed. Focus on merit instead.

Anti-discrimination laws have been around for decades. For the most part, they’re effective.

But diversity, equity and inclusion policies – in companies, organizations and institutions of higher learning – are anti-discrimination laws on steroids. We can see that in Texas.

Texas A&M University had an annual DEI budget of $11 million. From 2015 to 2020, the number of Black Aggies who “agreed” or “strongly agreed” that they “belonged” at Texas A&M had dropped about 30%, according to the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, a conservative think tank.

DEI-based programs across the country purport to exist to address mostly racial and gender inequalities, but they’re often ineffective at colleges and universities, and even harmful in corporate America, where these students go next.

Texas leaders realize what others don't: DEI programs are wasteful

This is playing out in Texas now at the University of Texas (UT), which just laid off at least 60 employees who worked in diversity, equity and inclusion-related positions, according to the Austin American-Statesman, part of the USA TODAY Network.

The mass firings were for efficiency to comply with Senate Bill 17, which went into effect in January. The new law bans Texas’ public universities and colleges from funding any offices or programs with a DEI-based aim.

Several Texas outlets have slammed the bill again after this news leaked. It’s easy to see why. That’s a lot of people who now need new jobs, and this is a tough environment for people looking for employment. But in some ways, the sheer number of DEI positions, the reaction and statistics about DEI prove the need for a closer look at DEI.

First, Texans support the law. A June poll showed that 49% of Texans "strongly” or “somewhat” support the ban, while only 34% oppose it.

About standardize testing: Using the SAT, ACT in college admissions isn't 'racist.' What else has the left got wrong?

Second, it’s excessive. According to the American-Statesman, 40 of the 60 staff were let go from the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, where the median annual salary is approximately $69,000.

That’s more than $2.7 million a year in salaries just for 40 employees. That could have funded need-based in-state tuition for four years for, say, nearly 60 Black or Hispanic women – because poverty tends to disproportionately affect those demographics.

Third, in some ways it’s ineffective at best and hypocritical at worst. (Especially in corporate America.)

DEI has failed at its own goal

In 2022, almost 35% of UT’s enrolled students were white. About 25% were Hispanic or Latino. A little more than 5% were Black.

The faculty was even less diverse. In 2021, almost 70% of UT’s fall faculty were white, just 10% were Hispanic and 5% were Black.

In 2022, students at UT released a report that claimed the university “does not offer the inclusivity that LGBTQIA+ students and other historically oppressed groups demand.”

So almost $3 million worth of employee salaries are pushing DEI initiatives and they’re still failing.

Administrators at Texas A&M and UT must have thought DEI was doing something good, or they wouldn’t have had so many staff working in this capacity. But surely, they had seen data showing their numbers weren’t improving. They were worsening. DEI initiatives often lead to feel-good roles but no real-time results.

It’s certainly a good idea to reverse structural racism where it thrives and to dispel gender biases that keep historically marginalized people from achieving their best potential. But we have anti-discrimination laws for this.

Opinion alerts: Get columns from your favorite columnists + expert analysis on top issues, delivered straight to your device through the USA TODAY app. Don't have the app? Download it for free from your app store.

DEI-based organizations and initiatives at a college level communicate to a generation of kids – who are already hyperfixated on themselves – that their educational success depends on a particular, perhaps marginalized, aspect of themselves.

Students become further obsessed with these handful of identifiers and expect the world will lend them a leg up. Does a corporation owe a new graduate a job because he’s gay? Because she’s Muslim? Isn’t hiring a new college graduate because of their identifiers – and who succeeded thanks to DEI efforts in college – the opposite of equity and inclusivity?

DEI initiatives fail college grads in the workplace

DEI initiatives in the workplace are also now facing backlash, per one report by Paradigm, following the Supreme Court’s 2023 affirmative action ruling.

In a survey of 1,000 hiring managers across the United States by ResumeBuilder.com, 1 in 6 “have been asked to deprioritize hiring white men,” almost half have been asked to “prioritize diversity over qualifications,” over half “believe their job will be in danger if they don’t hire enough diverse employees,” and 70% “believe their company has DEI initiatives for appearances’ sake.”

They're suing the NCAA: These women say transgender rules discriminate against them

So now fewer people who are qualified for employment will get a job because they’re not marginalized? Nobody is supposed to care about the white guys anymore because they’re part of a privileged patriarchal system, but by the looks of these hiring practices, that’s no longer true. And refusing to hire someone because they’re a white male is, well, against the law.

Last fall, Bloomberg reported that the year after Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, the S&P 100 added more than 300,000 jobs and 94% went to people of color. Given that only about a quarter of the U.S. population is not white, that's a high percentage.

Anti-discrimination laws succeed where DEI falls short

Is there a better way to achieve what DEI has failed to? Or is DEI in and of itself unnecessary? Texas Republicans seem to think the latter is true – and that’s why they banned it.

One could say that’s to be expected of a legislature that’s 70% male and half white. They don’t need DEI; they’ve already tasted success.

Two things are true: Thanks to decades-old state and federal anti-discrimination laws, American colleges and workplaces offer equity and equal rights under the law. Where these laws are broken, they’re challenged in court and overturned – like the Supreme Court’s decision last year that affirmative action at Harvard and the University of North Carolina violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

It’s also true that where DEI programs in colleges exist, they’re too expansive and simultaneously ineffective. Where they were perhaps originally a good idea decades ago, they’ve gone so far past the Overton Window, they’re either achieving little on college campuses or achieving the opposite in American workplaces, forcing companies to hire token representatives and eschewing merit-based hires because of sex and race.

The news that 60 people were let go sounds harsh, but it’s a short-term consequence to fixing a longer-term problem. DEI advances people in work and schools because they’re marginalized, not because of merit. In the end, in the name of inclusivity, it ends up being quite an exclusive club.

Nicole Russell is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY. She lives in Texas with her four kids.

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @usatodayopinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Texas DEI ban leads to UT layoffs. But it's how we fix long-term issue