Texas’ second audit of public colleges’ compliance with the state’s diversity, equity and inclusion ban found no violations at the University of Texas System and 15 community colleges, even as conservative activists continue to accuse some of keeping DEI-related work alive under new names.
The State Auditor’s Office report cleared UT System schools and the community colleges on one narrow question: whether they spent state money in violation of Senate Bill 17, the 2023 Texas law that forced public colleges to close DEI offices, end required DEI trainings and stop using diversity statements in hiring.
The report does not detail about what auditors found at each campus, what issues they raised privately with university leaders or how schools draw the line between banned DEI work and classroom teaching the law still protects.
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UT institutions changed staffing, programs, training and spending when the DEI ban took effect, Safady said. The system also updated its policies and certified to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board that all institutions were in compliance, she added.
The audit, first reported by KXAN on Thursday, covered all 14 UT System institutions and the following 15 community colleges:
- Alvin College
- Amarillo College
- Austin Community College District
- Brazosport College
- Clarendon College
- College of the Mainland
- Frank Phillips College
- Galveston College
- Houston City College
- Lee College
- Lone Star College System
- San Jacinto College District
- South Plains College
- Victoria College
- Wharton County Junior College
Officials at Austin Community College District, one of the larger systems reviewed with nearly 44,000 students enrolled last fall, said it would continue to follow the law.
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Auditors interviewed college employees and reviewed state-funded spending from Sept. 1, 2024, to Aug. 31, 2025. They looked at hiring records, job postings and descriptions, promotion and merit-pay records, training, programs, websites and documents related to former DEI offices.
They reviewed samples of such records. The report cautions that the audit’s results should not be used to draw conclusions about every record at each school.
At UT-Austin, for example, auditors reviewed 25 employees, 25 new hires and 25 promotions or merit increases out of thousands of records in those categories.
The State Auditor’s Office has found problems before. Its first audit of the ban, released in February 2025, flagged Texas A&M University-Central Texas for contracting with a vendor to perform DEI office duties and McLennan Community College for requiring a new employee to take DEI training.
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Academic course instruction and scholarly research are exempt from the DEI ban.
The post UT System, Community Colleges Complying With Texas’ DEI Ban, Auditors Find appeared first on American Renaissance.
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