Representative Dan Crenshaw (R., Texas) will introduce legislation Monday to prohibit institutions of higher education from requiring students to write or endorse diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements, National Review has exclusively learned.

Building on a recently signed Texas law banning DEI programs in the state’s public universities, the bill would amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to prevent universities across the country from receiving any federal funding if they compel students to compose or sign the oaths. 

Crenshaw told NR that the recent explosion of campus antisemitism provided the impetus for the bill.

“We can see the utter moral bankruptcy in higher education with the spread of antisemitism on college campuses,” he said. “Make no mistake: The DEI bureaucracy is directly responsible for a toxic campus culture that separates everyone into oppressor versus oppressed. That’s why I am dropping legislation to protect free thought and prevent federal funding for universities that force students to write diversity, equity, and inclusion statements.”

In addition to barring universities from mandating that students affirm DEI principles in writing, the bill includes provisions to prevent educational institutions from using such statements as conditions of employment or enrollment. Moreover, the legislation would prevent universities from forcing students to provide a statement indicating a student’s, employee’s, or contractor’s “race, color, ethnicity, or national origin, except to the minimum extent needed [to] record any necessary demographic information.” 

Preempting complaints from opponents of the bill concerned about academic freedom — much like the university presidents who, in their testimonies in front of the House Education & Workforce Committee, fell back on arguments of “open discourse” — Crenshaw included a section in the bill clarifying that, if enacted, the legislation would not infringe on classroom instruction or compliance with anti-discrimination laws. 

Nothing in the legislation may be construed, the bill holds, to hinder academic research or coursework, to prevent a person from providing racial or ethnic information on his or her own volition, or to preclude a university from inquiring about applicants’ own work.

Crenshaw’s words about the black-and-white dichotomy of “oppressor versus oppressed” are reflected in a recent Harvard-Harris poll showing that 67 percent of respondents age 18 through 24 believe Jews “as a class are oppressors and should be treated as oppressors.”