Six GOP-led states push sweeping bans on public funding for DEI programs

A new report finds that six Republican states are leading the charge on restricting public funding for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

The six states are Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas, which all considered significant numbers of anti-DEI bills between August 2024 and July 2025. Only Missouri failed to pass an anti-DEI bill, despite state lawmakers introducing more such bills than any other state, with fourteen, the report says.

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A further 23 states introduced anti-DEI bills during the time frame, and thirteen of those states had passed at least one. Twenty-one states had not considered any anti-DEI legislation.

The report, titled “DEI Under Fire: Policy, Politics, and the Future of Campus Diversity,” and published in October 2025 by the Critical Policy Collective, characterizes the laws as harmful to “race-conscious equity initiatives.”

“The ongoing legislative efforts at both the state and federal levels threaten to reverse decades of progress toward equity-driven initiatives, disproportionately affecting students, faculty, and staff from historically marginalized communities,” the report says.

“The extent of these changes varies by state, but the overall effect has weakened race-conscious equity initiatives and support systems for marginalized communities,” it continues.

The researchers examine four areas of anti-DEI legislation: “DEI Offices,” “Mandatory DEI Training,” “Diversity Statements,” and “Identity-Based Preferences.” The report defines the last standard as the “Elimination of preferences based on race, gender, or other identity markers in institutional policies.”

The Critical Policy Collective describes itself as a “group of scholars and activists who have come together to protect and advance critical studies in the wake of continuing attacks on critical knowledge and multiracial democracy.”

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Campus Reform has reported on the passage of anti-DEI bills and the many responses from public colleges and universities.

Indiana advanced S.B. 202 in February 2024, which became law that March, prohibiting mandated diversity statements at public universities. The state further passed S.B. 289 in May 2025, banning public funds from supporting diversity offices and initiatives. 

In November, the University of Southern Indiana eliminated its Multicultural Center, despite claiming that state laws had nothing to do with the change.

Iowa passed S.F. 2435 in May 2024 and H.F. 856 in May 2025, both of which restricted DEI offices.

Iowa State University restructured its LGBTQIA+ center programming and renamed the space ‘The Center’ in November 2024, citing compliance planning tied to the DEI law.

The University of Iowa rebranded its DEI office in June 2024.

Oklahoma passed S.B. 796 in May 2025, banning “diversity, equity, and inclusion positions, departments, activities, procedures, or programs to the extent they grant preferential treatment based on one person’s particular race, color, ethnicity, or national origin over another’s.”

Tennessee’s S.B. 102 bans mandatory “implicit bias training.” Texas’s S.B. 17 prohibits public funding for DEI.