COLLEGE STATION, Texas (KBTX) – Dozens of scholarships offered through Texas A&M University have been placed on hold due to requirements and language violating guidelines in Senate Bill 17.
The law, commonly referred to as the ‘DEI ban’ requires public universities to close their diversity, equity and inclusion offices, and prohibits training and policies that are considered to align with DEI practices. DEI initiatives were originally created to support groups who have been historically underrepresented or discriminated against.
A total of 57 scholarships are on hold pending a review from the system audit office. The scholarships cannot be awarded until they comply with SB 17. University officials said the hold is not impacting students since scholarships have not been distributed yet.
Many of these scholarships listed a preference for female applicants. Under the law, university-offered scholarships cannot consider race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin as requirements, according to a guide shared by Texas A&M. However, programs for veterans, first-generation students or economically disadvantaged students are not affected.
The law requires that scholarships with the word “diversity” in the title remove the word, and any other diversity-related aspects and criteria must also be removed.
Delisa Falks, Assistant Vice President of the Office of Scholarships and Financial Aid, said they’re working with scholarship donors to remove that language so the university can continue to award the scholarship.
“Altering that gift agreement to take that language out, to remove it so we will be able to continue to award those funding,” she said.
According to Falks, it’s about making scholarships inclusive to any Texas A&M student who wants to apply.
”There might have been an organization that was for a specific group, which wasn’t open to all. So if it was an organization where it was only open to men or only open to women, then that’s not inclusive to everyone,” she said.
Scholarships offered by private organizations aren’t subject to the rules laid out in SB 17. However, organizations like the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering said it’s still feeling the effects. For nearly 50 years, the Texas Alliance for Minorities in Engineering has offered resources and scholarships to future engineers from underrepresented populations.
”We’re here because the playing field does not start level, and part of what we do is try to create a more level playing field, and you do that by finding the people who otherwise might have opted out or felt like they couldn’t pursue careers like this,” interim director Kiyomi Beach said.
Beach said the organization has had to reduce the number of scholarships they offer after SB 17 caused them to lose university partners. The positive impacts of these scholarships, she said, extend beyond a student’s education.
“Without those, we wouldn’t have the diversity and the solutions that are actually more dynamic and more helpful for even solving problems for everyone,” Beach said.
While they did not partner with Texas A&M directly, several of their scholarship recipients are future Aggies representing minority populations.
“Just because we’re trying to, say, move away from DEI language doesn’t change the realities of people living across the state of Texas that we don’t all have equal opportunity,” she said.
Falks said after the review process to ensure the affected scholarships are in line with SB 17, those will then be eligible to be awarded to students.
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