The University of Florida just announced that it will eliminate all of its diversity, equity and inclusion positions in compliance with a January decision by the state’s board of governors, which oversees its 12 public universities, to prohibit state or federal funds from being used to support DEI programs.

The board’s ruling followed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signing into law last May a ban on public colleges and universities spending tax dollars on DEI initiatives. 

Fortunately, Hawaii isn’t Florida because the elimination of DEI programs and positions in the University of Hawaii system would have a catastrophic impact on students, staff, faculty and island residents — besides resulting in unemployment for many UH workers.

UH DEI programs provide services such as personal counseling and academic advising. They also protect numerous groups from discrimination, including Indigenous and ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ+ persons, veterans and many others.

A Broad Attack On Diversity Programs

Before discussing how those beneficiaries would be negatively affected if UH DEI offices and administrators were prohibited, we need to understand the recent origins of the Florida DEI ban and what it encompasses because it is quite broad.

Florida joins Texas and Utah in terminating or restricting DEI programs in higher education, while Republican legislators in more than 30 states have introduced or approved more than 100 bills to restrict DEI initiatives in the current legislative session. This nationwide attack on DEI programs can be attributed to a U.S. Supreme Court decision last June that prohibited race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions, although that ruling is consistent with the overall rightward shift in racial politics in America since the 1970s.  

According to the Florida law signed by DeSantis, state universities can’t use public funds to advocate for DEI initiatives, which are defined as “any program, campus activity or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation, and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.”

Social categories such as race, gender and sexual orientation are all considered protected classes according to federal and Hawaii state law and the UH policy on nondiscrimination and affirmative action. The latter policy has added more such classes, including breastfeeding mothers and National Guard personnel, over the decades to protect their rights to a college education.

The Florida law also prohibits instruction of theories that “systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege are inherent in the institutions of the United States and were created to maintain social, political, and economic inequities.” Specific theories include critical race theory and identity politics. 

If such a law had been passed in Hawaii when I was still teaching in the Ethnic Studies department, I couldn’t have included in my courses lectures and readings on racial and ethnic identity construction, CRT, and Joe Feagin’s systemic racism theory. This lack of knowledge would have left UH students, including mine, quite ignorant about racial matters, such as racism and racial inequality, like those in Florida and other states will be.

When DeSantis signed the anti-DEI bill last May, he declared, “If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, DEI is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination. And that has no place in our public institutions.” 

Logically, if DEI initiatives are abolished, public higher education becomes less diverse, equitable and inclusive. That objective is highly consistent with the reactionary vision that right-wing Republicans have for America as a whole, based on policies that are anti-immigration, anti-abortion, and anti-LGBTQ+.

Diversity And Equity Are Key Values At UH

If a DEI ban such as in Florida was implemented in the UH system, what consequences would it have? One immediate repercussion would be that the university would have to substantially revise the current Strategic Plan for 2023-2029 because it elevates diversity and equity as one of five foundational principles. Another such principle that presumably would have to be dropped is UH as a “Hawaiian place of learning” because some might consider that preferential treatment.

As for DEI programs and administrators in the UH system that would be eliminated if we were in Florida, they include the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action, Title IX (gender equity) coordinators at every campus, and the Office of Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity at UH Manoa.

SEED was established more than 30 years ago under the directorship of Amy Agbayani to coordinate activities among minority student recruitment and retention programs and offices. In 1972, she was one of the co-founders of Operation Manong, one of the first DEI student programs in the UH system, which recruited Filipino students at UH Manoa to tutor and encourage immigrant Filipinos in public schools. 

Now led by Christine Quemuel, the interim assistant vice provost for student diversity and inclusion, SEED currently includes more than 20 offices, such as Native Hawaiian Student Development Services, the Office of Multicultural Student Services, the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer+ Center, and the Women’s Center.

I asked Camaron Miyamoto, director of the LGBTQ+ Center, what he thinks would happen if their office was forced to close. He responded that the impact would be immediate and disastrous.

“Many LGBTQ+ students depend on centers like ours to build community, find empowerment, and gain essential tools for personal and academic success,” he said.

“Some of our LGBTQ+ students have found their voice, quite literally, through participation in our programs. One student mentioned they were too nervous and shy to speak on topics they knew about in class until they became more comfortable with their sense of self and getting to know other students like them,” he said.

The same can be said about the services and benefits provided by UH centers for Indigenous, ethnic minority and women students.  

While we might remain confident that DEI offices and administrators in the UH system will not be eliminated for ideological reasons, they may face restrictions resulting from a reduced university budget initiated by some state legislators, particularly Democrats. They seem to have forgotten that they belong to the party that still advocates for diversity, equity and inclusion.