Alabama mayor urges black students to leave to out-of-state schools because of anti-DEI bill

An Alabama mayor urged black athletes to attend out-of-state universities, criticizing Alabama’s recent bill targeting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). 

Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin threatened to “organiz[e] Black parents and athletes to attend other institutions outside of the state where diversity and inclusion are prioritized” in a Feb. 21 Facebook post commenting on SB 129, Alabama’s anti-DEI legislation, which is sponsored by State Sen. Will Barfoot.

[RELATED: University of Florida fires all DEI employees, eliminates department]

Campus Reform has previously reported on the bill, which would stop public higher education in Alabama from “Sponsor[ing] any [DEI] program or maintain[ing] any office, physical location, or department that promotes [DEI] programs,” fight back against “divisive concepts” in higher education, and stop public colleges and universities from letting men use women’s restrooms and vice versa. 

As of March 7, the bill has passed both Houses of the Alabama legislature.

“To the parents of minority athletes who are helping their children decide if they want to play sports at those institutions: Would you be cool with your child playing at schools where diversity among staff is actively being discouraged?” The mayor wrote on Facebook.

Woodfin also compared the bill to pro-segregation efforts in the 1960s: “If supporting inclusion becomes illegal in this state, hell, you might as well stand in front of the school door like Governor Wallace.” 

Campus Reform has covered anti-DEI legislation in other states. This December, Campus Reform covered three states–Florida, Oklahoma, and Texas–that have all taken steps to fight back against DEI in higher education. 

[RELATED: Yale announces plans for more ‘inclusive’ campus to make up for its ‘legacy of slavery’]

The Kentucky Senate also passed a bill that would ban public higher education institutions from forcefully pushing “divisive concepts” on students, such as the idea that “[a]n individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently privileged, racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or subconsciously,” or that “[t]he Commonwealth of Kentucky or the United States of America is fundamentally or irredeemably racist or sexist.”

On Feb. 12, the Idaho Senate also introduced legislation stating: “[t]he university of Idaho and any private institution of higher education in the state of Idaho shall not expend funds appropriated by the Idaho legislature to establish, sustain, support, or staff a diversity, equity, and inclusion office or to contract, employ, engage, or hire an individual to serve as a diversity, equity, and inclusion officer.”

Campus Reform has contacted State Sen. Barfoot and Mayor Woodfin for comment. This article will be updated accordingly. 

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