'We did not see this coming': UT staff, students react to layoffs, DCCE closure after SB17

Students and community members are reeling after the University of Texas announced it was closing the Division of Campus and Community Engagement — previously known as the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement — and told dozens of employees Tuesday who had previously served in diversity, equity and inclusion-related positions that they would lose their jobs in 90 days or more, according to two people with knowledge of the layoffs.

UT President Jay Hartzell said in an email to the university community that in implementing changes as required by Senate Bill 17, the state's anti-DEI law that went into effect Jan. 1, the Division of Campus and Community Engagement would be closing after evaluating and eliminating programs that "now overlap with our efforts elsewhere." He said the remaining programs that the division exclusively offered would be transferred to other departments where they would complement existing services, and he assured that the Division of Student Affairs would work to make student-facing services available through the semester.

"The new law has changed the scope of some programs on campus, making them broader and creating duplication with long-standing existing programs supporting students, faculty, and staff," Hartzell wrote to the campus in reference to the school's changes being made to comply with the new anti-DEI law. "Following those reviews, we have concluded that additional measures are necessary to reduce overlap, streamline student-facing portfolios, and optimize and redirect resources into our fundamental activities of teaching and research."

UT would not confirm to the American-Statesman how many positions or programs have been eliminated. The Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors released a joint statement Wednesday calling for the university to be more transparent about the layoffs, and multiple elected officials and rights and social justice groups have called on UT to reinstate the eliminated positions and programs.

Division of Campus and Community Engagement staff members were called into a meeting Tuesday morning where a human resources representative verbally delivered the news that some of them would be laid off, according to a staff member who was laid off and spoke to the Statesman on the condition of anonymity due to not being authorized to speak about the layoffs. The staff member said they later received a confirmation letter that they would be laid off.

"This hurt me," the staff member said. "There is so much grieving, there is so much sadness."

The staff member said the division had worked to remain compliant with SB 17, and that news of the closure and layoffs was a "gut punch." The division has a storied history spanning two decades of supporting students, the staff member said, and that those who used its services are now seeing staff members who "essentially saw them grow up" have to leave unexpectedly.

"The work was never like the bill said, 'preferential treatment,'" the staff member said. "It was really for all."

More: What UT lost with SB 17: American-Statesman's guide to changes due to Texas' anti-DEI law

'We had no idea we would be hit this hard'

The Division of Diversity and Campus Engagement was "a national model for integrating diversity and community engagement into the core mission of a university," providing access to resources and education to members of the UT and Texas community "who may face the greatest challenges in accessing it," according to a December in-house description of the department, before UT converted it to the Division of Campus and Community Engagement to comply with SB 17.

In the Division of Diversity and Campus Engagement's impact report last year, articles described how the division was working to support students academically and professionally and talked about how the division's work enhanced the university's strategic plan, "Change Starts Here."

"As President Hartzell noted while announcing the 'Change Starts Here' plan, diversity and excellence are inseparable," the 2023 report said. "We know that many people of different groups and identities need to be at the table to solve the world’s biggest challenges and dream up new innovations for a better tomorrow. That is why our units are supporting and uplifting diverse talent in an effort to make The University of Texas at Austin the world’s most impactful public university."

More: 'Exhausted', 'confused,' 'unprecedented': Texas professors, students reflect on DEI ban

After UT made changes to the division to comply with SB 17, its four core pillars were student success, campus engagement, community engagement, and access and belonging. It also housed the Women's Community Center, which was previously the Gender and Sexuality Center.

UT lists 19 of the division's programs that have been relocated to other divisions, including the Sweatt Center, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health, Advise Texas, First Generation Longhorns, and Disability and Access. The Women's Community Center is not on the university's list of relocated programs.

Isabel Bellard, a UT junior, was part of the Fearless Leadership Institute at the division, a program that before Jan. 1 worked to support Black and Hispanic female students on campus but later adapted to support all women after SB 17 went into effect. Bellard said Tuesday that she found out the leadership institute was not on the list of saved programs. An hour after Hartzell's email announcing the division's closure, Bellard said she saw the website was removed from UT's server.

"They're like explicitly keeping us out of the conversation," Bellard said.

Only 4.5% of UT students in the fall 2023 semester were Black, according to a university fact sheet. Bellard said the program helped her find a community on campus with shared experiences, as well as take advantage of opportunities she wouldn't have otherwise had, such as taking her first-ever flight to New York to network with businesses.

"Black people at UT, when they get here as students, the first question is, 'Where all the other Black people?'" Bellard said. "Most Black students, they're one of maybe two, maybe three other people of color in the room, and so that creates this really isolating space for people of color. (The Fearless Leadership Institute) was actually the space that said, 'Hey, there is a space for'" you.

Bellard said students will fight for staff members and for the return of programs that were integral to her experience at UT. She said the division's programs are essential to bolster graduation rates and retention on campus for marginalized students. Black students, for instance, were not allowed to attend UT until the 1950s.

"In order for any marginalized students to be treated fairly at the University of Texas, because they weren't accepted for so long, diversity and identity-specific programs and partnerships are critical in developing students' sense of belonging" on a campus where white students are the majority, she added. "If I was a freshman, I'd be considering transferring and getting my degree from a different university."

Lacey Reynolds, a UT junior and the president of the Onyx Honors Society, said she attended an emergency meeting with hundreds of students Tuesday night to process the news and action items.

"We didn't see this coming," Reynolds said. "We had no idea we would be hit this hard."

All students are affected by this, Reynolds said, adding that students are planning to stand up for staff members ― many of whom felt like "families away from home."

"It's really hard right now being a student leader, when the people who you would seek advice from have lost their voices," she said. "Being a Black president at a predominantly white school during a fight that people are now starting to call 'Jim Crow 2.0,' I would say it's extremely difficult, very heavy."

Shocked and angry, UT senior Amanda Garcia, an organizer for Texas Students for DEI, also attended the student emergency meeting Tuesday night. Over the summer and fall, Garcia said she had been in meetings with administrators and student groups to discuss how SB 17 would be implemented on campus. But, she said, she had no idea this was coming.

"Up until this point, we had believed administration was in some ways willing to work with us," Garcia said.

The loss of the division and staff members comes after UT shuttered the Multicultural Engagement Center; ended Monarch, a program to support undocumented students; and cut its sponsorship of student groups that had been part of the multicultural center, groups that Garcia said are now running GoFundMe accounts to make up for thousands of dollars lost from their budgets.

More: What UT lost with SB 17: American-Statesman's guide to changes due to Texas' anti-DEI law

However, Garcia said, students are mobilizing and coming together in "unprecedented" ways to figure out how to support staff members who were laid off and move forward.

"We're more determined now than ever," they said. "I think they really underestimated how much these staff members meant to students."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas DEI ban: UT staff, students react to layoffs, DCCE closure