Two-Thirds of Universities Reviewed in Report Have Mandatory DEI Coursework
In a comprehensive review of 248 colleges and universities nationwide, an organization named Speech First found that nearly two-thirds required students to complete mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) coursework to graduate.
The authors of the report found that 165 (67%) of the colleges reviewed mandate DEI courses “to satisfy general education requirements,” and a majority of these (98) are public, taxpayer-funded institutions, while 67 are private.
Schools that met at least one of the study’s requirements—Spring 2023 NCAA Division 1 Conference Membership, U.S. News Ranking 2023 of Best National Universities, Endowment over $1 billion, or top 100 of undergrad enrollment—were included in the review. All 50 states, including the District of Columbia, were reviewed by Speech First. For reference, however, there were 3,982 degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the U.S. as of 2020, according to U.S. News and World Report, meaning that a significant portion of schools in the U.S. were not able to be included in the systematic review.
“Our study surveyed campuses nationwide to identify those mandating not just brief online DEI training, but full-semester courses as a graduation prerequisite,” Speech First wrote in its report. “Ultimately, our report found that even in states that have banned DEI departments at public schools, in many cases, students are still being required to take DEI courses to graduate.”
The review considered DEI courses to be any class that contains “explicit DEI language” in its title, “learning outcomes,” and course descriptions. Examples of language screened for include, “race,” “racism,” “antiracism,” “systemic racism,” “white supremacy,” “white guilt,” and “critical race theory,” among other terms.
Speech First provided examples of DEI coursework from several universities, including the University of San Diego, Boston University, Loyola Marymount University, and the University of Maryland.
“[A] commitment to free speech on campus requires academic freedom for professors within their classrooms. But American universities are increasingly institutionally stacking the deck by … [infusing] an ideological worldview that is in many instances hostile to key tenets of the American way of life,” Cherise Trump, the Executive Director of Speech First said. “Taxpayers may well wonder why they subsidize academic institutions that require training in a hostile ideology as a graduation requirement.”
