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Feb. 17, 2025 |  By: Annelise Hanshaw - Missouri Independent

Missouri Republicans continue push to bar state funding of diversity, equity and inclusion

missouri dei

By Annelise Hanshaw - Missouri Independent

Missouri lawmakers have rekindled a crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion programs with a handful of bills seeking to outlaw DEI in state-funded entities.

In 2022, just two bills named DEI as a target. But the number grew to 14 in 2024. None have been signed into law. Within the first month of this year’s legislative session, four bills had been filed targeting diversity, equity and inclusion in the title with others pushing for the same restrictions without explicitly naming DEI.

State Rep. Ben Baker, a Republican from Neosho, filed a bill to bar state departments from spending money on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The legislation, which passed out of a House committee at the end of January, looks at spending on programs that promotes “the preferential treatment of any individual or group of individuals based on race, color, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, national origin or ancestry.”

Baker described DEI during a House Emerging Issues Committee hearing in late January as an idea with positive intentions that has been “hijacked,” causing “further discrimination.”

“What DEI has become should not be paid for by taxpayers,” he said.

Baker noted that the U.S. government has been directed to eliminate DEI programs under President Donald Trump, and the University of Missouri disbanded its Division of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity office last summer.

“Like most of these DEI programs include that intrinsic idea of collective guilt, and I don’t think we should ever expect someone to accept guilt for something that they did not do and was outside of their control,” Baker said. “Especially when it comes to things like skin color or their religion or any of the other things that are outlined in the bill.”

Nearly 130 people have submitted comments on the bill online, with just 14 in favor of the legislation.

Sage Coram, a lobbyist for the ACLU of Missouri, said in her written testimony that the wording of the bill would have unintended consequences.

“The vague language will cause a variety of professionals and state employees to steer clear of complex topics, chilling free speech and impacting the ability of adults to work, lead and succeed across the state,” she wrote.

Baker filed the legislation last year, and it was rolled into a similar bill by former Rep. Cody Smith. The legislation passed the house 102-47 but was never discussed by the Senate.

State Sen. Rick Brattin, a Republican from Harrisonville, has included diversity, equity and inclusion in a large education bill filed for the last five years. And this year, he has extra influence after being named chairman of the chamber’s education committee. 

Brattin’s bill would ban schools from discussing critical race theory or similar topics. Critical race theory studies how racism has affected United States society and law.

In 2021, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education surveyed over 400 school districts and found just one that reported it teaches critical race theory.

Brattin’s bill labels the theory and DEI as “divisive concepts,” which would be banned from public schools. This includes barring ideas like: “An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex.”

Under the bill, teaching students these ideas, creating activities engaging in political activism or training teachers on divisive concepts could lead to an investigation by the Missouri attorney general and a loss of up to half a district’s state funding. 

“We don’t need our kids being taught these sorts of divisive topics,” Brattin told the Senate Education committee Tuesday. “(Critical race theory) really brings up a lot of vitriol in the way things are being taught.”

The legislation also proposes a transparency system where community members can access teacher training materials and class instructional materials.

“The best way and the best process to ensure that these sorts of topics aren’t being taught is giving full access and transparency to all curriculum and all subject matter that’s put before the students and before their children,” Brattin said.

Some worried that adding new responsibilities for teachers would only hurt the state’s efforts to recruit and retain educators.

“These kinds of bills, especially in the form that we see right here, is likely to have a heavy effect on teachers wanting to teach,” said Otto Fajen, a lobbyist for the teachers’ union Missouri National Educators Association.

Amy Hammerman, a policy advocate with the National Council of Jewish Women, called the bill overly broad.

“We are concerned that schools and school districts, in efforts to prevent themselves from being at liability for being in violation, will do things like eliminate programs,” she said, naming extracurriculars like the Jewish student union.

Other bills filed specifically look at DEI in schools.

State Rep. Mark Meirath, a Republican from Excelsior Springs, filed a bill that would prohibit public schools and universities from using state funding on DEI. The bill defines DEI as including “training, workshops, curriculum materials, student groups and any other program or event related to such subjects.”

If an educational institution violated the terms, all state funding would be pulled “until the violation is rectified to the satisfaction of (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education or the Department of Higher Education).”

The bill has not yet made it to committee.