Rep. Steven Howe said a bill limiting DEI practices at Kansas colleges and universities is necessary. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Rep. Steven Howe, chairman of the House Higher Education Budget Committee, pointed to job applications at Kansas State University and other Kansas public universities to argue the necessity of legislation restricting diversity, equity and inclusion practices.
Howe, a Salina Republican who requested the bill’s introduction, said he initiated DEI debate in the last legislative session after hearing public discussion about DEI on college campuses and conducting his own research.
“What we’ve seen across the United States is universities becoming more lopsided in terms of the types of people that are in positions,” Howe said. “They might be more politically minded in a certain viewpoint. You might not have a diversity of intellectual thought on a campus because you’ve kind of weeded out people that may not share in a certain ideology.”
Diversity, equity and inclusion is commonly understood as an organizational framework that seeks to give voices to historically underrepresented groups.The diversity aspect is meant to acknowledge differences such as race, gender, sexual identity and culture. Equity is about correcting systemic imbalance and offering everyone equal opportunities. Inclusion is about supporting and valuing all people and making sure they feel valued within a system, as InclusionHub defines it .