(The Center Square) – Mississippi state Sen. Angela Burks Hill introduced a bill that would end diversity, equity, and inclusion ideology in the state’s higher education system.
Senate Bill 2223 intends to “prohibit public land-grant institutions of higher learning from expending appropriated funds to establish, sustain, support, or staff a diversity, equity, and inclusion office.”
Diversity, equity, and inclusion is defined in the bill as “any effort to manipulate or otherwise influence the composition of the faculty or student body with reference to race, sex, color, or ethnicity,” as well as promoting “differential treatment” of or providing “special benefits” to people based on their race, color, or ethnicity.
The Center Square reached out to Burks Hill twice for comment, and received no response. Hill is the chair of Mississippi’s Senate Constitution Committee and the vice-chair of the Drug Policy Committee.
Bill 2223 intends to prohibit diversity training requirements and end requiring diversity statements “for certain purposes.”
Schools will not be allowed to grant “preferential consideration to certain individuals based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation,” under the bill.
“Expending funds to contract, employ, engage, or hire an individual to serve as a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer” is outlined as prohibited.
All public institutions of higher learning will also have to “produce a report confirming compliance with” bill 2223.
The Mississippi State Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) board will be reallocating “funds that otherwise would have been expended on diversity, equity, and inclusion offices or officers in fiscal year 2025 to cover certain merit scholarships and tuition costs,” according to the bill.
IHL director of communications John Sewell told The Center Square that “Senate Bill 2223 is still working its way through the legislative process, and we have no comment on it at this time.”
The eight public universities in Mississippi are Alcorn State University, Delta State University, Jackson State University, Mississippi State University, Mississippi University for Women, Mississippi Valley State University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Southern Mississippi, as listed on the IHL’s website.
Bill 2225 is currently referred to the Mississippi Senate Universities and Colleges Committee, according to LegiScan.
The Center Square reached out to the committee’s chairman, Nicole Boyd, vice-chairman Scott DeLano, and member Albert Butler. None responded but Boyd, who told The Center Square that there are “multiple DEI bills including 2515.”
Bill 2515 is also currently referred to the Senate Universities and Colleges Committee as shown on LegiScan. It would “establish the ‘Mississippi University System Efficiency Task Force’ to examine the efficiency and effectiveness of the public university system in Mississippi,” according to the bill.
Bill 2515 would “require public institutions of higher learning and community colleges to ensure that each unit does not establish or maintain a diversity, equity and inclusion office,” as stated in the bill.
