A talent competition for Black high school students that has been held at Tarrant County College South Campus for more than 15 years abruptly changed venues last weekend.
The reason? The recent state law, Senate Bill 17, which bans diversity, equity and inclusion offices and programs at colleges and universities. The law went into effect at the beginning of last year, and also bans “contracting with third parties to perform duties of a DEI office,” according to TCC’s website.
The local chapter of the Fort Worth Tarrant County branch of the NAACP organizes an ACT-SO competition every year, where Black high school students compete in a range of competitions, from choir to cooking, STEM to filmmaking. This year more than 50 students competed. The local NAACP chapter has been organizing the program since 1991, and since the late 2000s, the competition has been at TCC’s South Campus…