Dissertation Research
A State-Level Analysis of the Economic, Political, and Social Equity Dimensions of Anti-DEI Legislation in Higher Education
Ph.D. in Public Affairs
The University of Texas at Dallas, 2026
Committee James R. Harrington (Chair), Abraham Benavides, Meghna Sabharwal, Sean McCandless.
Since 2023, state legislatures have introduced 153 bills across 30 states to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at public colleges and universities, and 34 have become law as of July 2026. My dissertation tracked all 50 states from 2019 to 2025 and analyzed the laws enacted through 2025 to identify who passed these laws and what changed afterward.
Key findings
Politics drove adoption. Every state that passed a ban had unified Republican control of its government, and no Democratic-controlled state passed one.
The predicted effects have not appeared yet. Of 20 hypotheses tested, 14 showed no significant effect. State economies and college enrollment did not visibly shift, and the few clear changes ran opposite to predictions, including a decline in race discrimination complaints filed with the EEOC.
Methods
A fifty-state panel using two-way fixed-effects difference-in-differences, the Callaway and Sant'Anna group-time estimator, event-study designs, and logit and probit adoption models. Data from IPEDS, the EEOC, federal statistical agencies, and the National Conference of State Legislatures.