Cameron Abrams - Reporter, The Texan Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My life. Thanks Cluch. Yeah, college was fun. Seven twenty
three is our time here in Houston's Morning News. But
college is a different universe than the one that we
negotiated decades ago. Cameron Abrams joins us a reporter at
the Texan and the I don't know if you heard
me mention this camera, but I'm frustrated by these stories
because the one thing that I've learned is that our
Texas universities are smarter than our Texas lawmakers are. They

(00:23):
seem to be able to find loopholes about around all
of these DEI requirements. They just end up calling it
something else. So tell me how it is that these
five Texas universities are requiring DEI courses for graduation and
getting away with it. How are they getting away with it?

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Well? Yeah, like you mentioned, this is something that is
relatively new now after this report came out, because during
the eighty eighth legislator session, they Texas lawmakers passed SB seventeen,
which banned DEI offices on Texas university campuses. But the

(01:00):
goldwaters to actually publish this report that found five Texas
universities in some capacity are what this report is saying
requires students to take courses that instruct them in politically
activists DEI concepts and practices, and so at these universities
they detail three of them here. Ut Austin requires for

(01:26):
graduation students to take a variety of different courses, but
one of them being one that's focused on cultural diversity.
In the United States, the report also mentions Texas Tech
University to graduate, students have to take a multicultural course,
and then also University of North Texas to graduate from

(01:50):
the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences to get
a Bachelor of Arts degree, they're required to complete a
course in cultural diversity and global issues. So that's just
three universities there that have these sort of DEI adjacent
courses required for graduation.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Okay, I'm sure this irks our lawmakers in Austin to
no end. I guess the question is what are they
prepared to do about it? Because at the end of
the day, without any sort of punishment, whether it's through
withheld funding or whatever it may be, there's not gonna
be any reason for these universities to change, is there.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Well, what we're seeing some reactions so far is Senate
Bill seventeen, author during the eighty eighth legislative session. Now
in the eighty nine session, we're seeing Senator Brandon Creighton
along with Senator Paul Bettencourt. They've issued a letter to
the boards of regents at every Texas public university saying

(02:49):
they've found numerous instances of renaming, relaunching, reauthorizing these DEI
units under the guise of different names. And they've actually
said that they're going to freeze the state funds to
these public institutions of higher education until the SB seventeen

(03:13):
is being reported at satisfactory levels. So we're seeing reactions there.
We also saw recently the House Texas House, they held
a committee airing where these universities for providing testimony on
upholding SB seventeen, many of them saying they're still working

(03:36):
through how to best handle implementing this new law. And
we've seen pieces of legislation that have been filed this session.
Bred Cody Harris has introduced legislation to restrict how these
DEI style courses are incorporated into general education curriculum. So

(03:59):
we're seeing react now, it's just a process. There's steps
that need to be taken. First, it was the DEI
Office van last session. Now there's an increased focus on
the actual courses being used.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Okay, well, we'll see how this whole thing works itself out.
I'm sure there's more to come on this. We'll see
if they can find out loopholes to whatever this latest
legislation might be. Thank you, sir, appreciate it. Checking in today,
that's Cameron Abrams. He's a reporter at the Texan