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Most people assume that when a state bans DEI, its public universities are forced to shut those programs down. What’s less obvious is how those universities are adjusting their modus operandi behind the scenes to keep things moving.

Earlier this week, we released undercover footage from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. DEI is supposed to be off the table there. That’s the law.

But what we found wasn’t a program that had been shut down. It was a program that had been adjusted just enough to stay in place.

Watch the video here:
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Adam Watkins, professor and chair of the Department of Human Services, doesn’t describe a major overhaul. Instead, he walks AIM’s undercover journalist through how it’s been handled. Course names have been changed, language has been softened, but the underlying material stays the same.

What stood out all the more was how he justified it. Because the university is in Ohio, with what he described as a “more homogenous” student population, he suggested the program should actually place more emphasis on DEI. If students aren’t encountering these ideas elsewhere, the argument goes, the university should step in to provide that exposure.

Then he admitted that universities are leaning on accreditation requirements to sidestep state and federal bans, keeping the same content in place while presenting it as compliant with the law.

That explanation might sound familiar after what we released today.

This time, it’s the University of Kentucky:
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Ja’Mahl McDaniel, director of the Martin Luther King Center, describes a similar approach. DEI isn’t presented in the same way it used to be, he acknowledges, but it hasn’t disappeared either. It’s being carried forward in what he calls “different ways” and through “gray areas,” with the same ideas repackaged under safer language.

After investigating universities across several states, it’s hard to take the “ban” seriously. The policies change and the public language shifts, but the programs themselves never actually go away.

Several states have already started taking steps to establish their own accreditation bodies and standards that don’t require DEI, closing the loophole universities are relying on.

Until more states follow that lead, these bans will continue to look one way on paper and another way in practice, leaving taxpayers forced to fund ideologies that their legislators have agreed to ban.

This doesn’t change without pressure. You can apply it through our campaigns here:
OHIO ACTION ALERT ([link removed])
KENTUCKY ACTION ALERT ([link removed])

Each message sent goes directly to the people responsible for these universities.

—Accuracy in Media

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