Texas Senate Bill 17 bars every public college, university, community college, and state medical or dental unit in Texas from operating a diversity, equity, and inclusion office, requiring diversity statements, or mandating identity-based training. Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill in 2023, and its restrictions took effect on January 1, 2024.1State of Texas. Texas Education Code 51.3525 – Responsibility of Governing Boards Regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives The law pushes hiring, admissions, and campus programming toward race- and sex-neutral processes, and it puts the governing board of each institution on the hook for making sure every unit complies.
What SB 17 Prohibits
The statute targets four categories of institutional activity.1State of Texas. Texas Education Code 51.3525 – Responsibility of Governing Boards Regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Initiatives
- DEI offices. No institution may establish or maintain an office, division, or other unit whose purpose is to influence hiring based on race, sex, color, or ethnicity; to promote differential treatment based on those characteristics; or to conduct identity-based training. Hiring or contracting with an outside party to perform those same duties is equally prohibited.
- Diversity statements. Institutions cannot require, solicit, or give preferential weight to any written or oral statement of a person’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The ban covers job applicants, current employees, and students.
- Mandatory identity-based training. No one can be required to attend a training, program, or activity built around race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation as a condition of enrollment, employment, or performing any institutional function.
- Preferential treatment. Institutions may not give preference on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin to job applicants, current employees, or participants in any institutional function.
One narrow exception sits inside the law. Activities that an attorney develops and that the institution’s general counsel and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approve in writing, for the sole purpose of complying with a court order or an existing state or federal law, are still allowed. That carve-out lets institutions run legally required anti-harassment or anti-discrimination training, but only after clearing a formal approval process.
Renaming a DEI office does not solve the problem. The statute defines a prohibited office by its purpose and activities, not by its title. An office doing the same work under a new label still violates the law.
What Still Happens on Campus
The prohibitions do not reach everything on a Texas public campus that touches on race, identity, or social issues. Several activities remain fully protected.
- Classroom instruction. Faculty can teach about race, gender, social justice, or any other topic as part of academic coursework. The law does not regulate curriculum.
- Scholarly research. Research by students, faculty, and research personnel, together with the dissemination of that work and the grant applications supporting it, is exempt.2Research at UTMB. Senate Bill 17 Guidance for Research and Grant Applications
- Student organizations. Registered student groups can continue organizing around specific identities or social causes without institutional interference.
- Guest speakers. Short-term speakers and performers are exempt, so institutions can still host a wide range of outside voices.
- Demographic data. Institutions may still collect data for state and federal reporting, including the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
Taken together, these carve-outs are broad. A professor can lead a seminar on racial inequality, a student club can host identity-focused events, and a visiting scholar can lecture on systemic bias, none of which trips the statute. SB 17 regulates the institutional administrative apparatus, not individual academic or student-led activity.
Which Schools Must Comply
SB 17 applies to every entity that qualifies as an “institution of higher education” under Section 61.003 of the Texas Education Code: public technical institutes, public junior and community colleges, public senior universities, and medical or dental units funded by the state.3State of Texas. Texas Education Code Chapter 61 – Definitions If the school receives state appropriations, it is covered.
Private colleges and universities in Texas are not. SB 17 works through the state’s power over public appropriations and public governing boards, so it has no mechanism to bind a school that does not take state legislative funding. A private university does not fall under the law simply because it accepts federal grants or federal student aid.
How the State Enforces It
Enforcement runs on two tracks. One freezes money up front; the other pulls future money if something goes wrong.
Annual Certification by the Governing Board
Each institution’s governing board must file a report with the Texas Legislature and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board certifying that the institution complied with SB 17 during the preceding fiscal year. Until that certification is filed, the institution cannot spend any money the legislature has appropriated to it for the current fiscal year. The appropriation is not revoked; it is frozen. For a large university, even a short spending freeze creates significant operational pressure.
State Auditor Reviews Every Four Years
The State Auditor’s Office must audit every public institution of higher education for SB 17 compliance at least once every four years.4Texas State Auditor’s Office. A Report on Audits of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Requirements at Institutions of Higher Education If the auditor finds that an institution spent state money in violation of the law, the institution has 180 days to fix the problem. Fail to fix it in that window, and the institution becomes ineligible for formula funding increases, institutional enhancements, or exceptional items during the next state fiscal biennium. The base budget stays, but any growth is cut off for two years.
The auditor’s first round of findings came out in February 2025. Most institutions passed. Two did not: Texas A&M University–Central Texas entered into a contract that violated the statute, and McLennan Community College required a training program that did not comply.4Texas State Auditor’s Office. A Report on Audits of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Requirements at Institutions of Higher Education Both findings involved narrow operational problems rather than open defiance. The pattern suggests that closing a named DEI office is the easy part; auditing every contract, vendor agreement, and inherited training module is where compliance gaps show up.
Where Federal Law and Accreditation Fit In
SB 17 contains a blanket exception for activities required by federal law, but figuring out what federal law actually requires is where institutions have to be careful. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in any program receiving federal financial assistance.5Department of Justice. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 Some institutions historically maintained DEI infrastructure in part to document Title VI compliance; with that infrastructure gone, they have to meet federal nondiscrimination obligations through other means.
On the accreditation side, in March 2026 the U.S. Department of Education issued formal warnings to two accrediting bodies whose standards still referenced diversity-related requirements, demanding full rescission within 45 days. Many of those standards had already been suspended. The direction of travel at the federal level has been toward, not against, the restrictions SB 17 imposes.
What SB 17 Does Not Do
The law is narrower than some public discussion suggests. It does not prohibit individual faculty from holding or expressing personal views on diversity. It does not stop institutions from recruiting students or employees from underrepresented backgrounds through race-neutral outreach. And it does not restrict student support services such as counseling, disability accommodations, or financial aid, so long as those offices are not operating to promote differential treatment based on the characteristics the statute lists.