Voices Against The Racist DEI Ban And The Fight For Free Speech
Free speech is under attack in Texas as the Republicans continue to fight against diversity in higher education.
https://www.lonestarleft.com/p/voices-against-the-racist-dei-ban
The Texas Senate Committee on Higher Education, chaired by Senator Brandon Creighton (R), met yesterday. They planned to discuss three topics: compliance with the DEI ban, combatting “anti-semitism” on campus, and campus free speech. As I expected, the hearing lasted for nearly 11 hours. Two hundred fourteen people signed up to testify against these restrictive measures, but only 148 stayed to speak by late evening.
Creighton pulled a typical Republican stunt by allowing several panels of invited testimony to speak first, making sure to drag out all of their time. Republicans do this when hundreds of people sign up against awful bills. They try to stretch the invited testimony out as long as they can so that eventually, people will have to leave to go to work, school, or family plans; that way, there are fewer people to tell the Republicans what terrible people they are. It was six hours into the hearing before public testimony began.
Each of the panels was the same: Republican-aligned guests saying the things that Republicans wanted to hear. When they spoke about “anti-semitism” on campus and free speech, they talked about Columbia University and other colleges that have been in the news, pointing to how those non-Texas universities had pro-Palestine protests that included graffiti and the taking over of buildings.
The panels discussed what they have done to eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) on their perspective campuses. It was very business-like. They discussed getting rid of these programs and laying off the related employees while keeping the morality of it out of the conversations.
The first six hours of the hearing was a Republican circle-jerk.