Senate Bill 1274, which was signed into law by Governor Brad Little on July 1, 2024, prevents institutions of higher education in Idaho from requiring diversity statements as a condition of employment or student admission.
According to the bill, diversity statements refer to “any written or oral statement discussing the applicant’s or candidate’s race, sex, color, ethnicity or sexual orientation.” In addition, the bill prohibits Idaho postsecondary educational institutions from requiring statements related to an applicant’s or hiring candidate’s involvement with diversity, equity and inclusion.
The bill’s aim is to ensure that student applicants for college and hiring admissions will be prioritized on merit.
Although Boise State University has never required students to submit or sign a diversity statement for admissions, Rep. James Petzke, a House sponsor of the bill, discussed that the bill’s primary purpose is to prevent compelled speech.
“Compelled speech is something that goes against American values and our First Amendment. To my knowledge, no university was actively requiring such statements when the bill became law and the [Idaho] State Board of Ed[ucation] had already banned them,” Petzke said in an email to The Arbiter. “However, many legislators were still hearing concerns about this issue and there was a strong desire within the legislature to do something about it.”
Petzke added that he doesn’t anticipate this bill having an effect on student admissions, hiring or DEI funding.
Democratic Sen. Melissa Wintrow suggested that the decisions made by state legislation can have an impact on future graduates as they enter the workforce.
“Right now if I were a student, I would be looking at where I applied for college to see what the state was doing on people’s behalf, and if the state legislature was hostile to people of color, women, people who are gay, trans, people with disabilities, I’d be asking these questions before I signed onto the bottom line,” Wintrow said.
Wintrow added the impact this is having on the workforce both nationally and locally.
“We have a workforce shortage in many areas in our country and in our state mostly because folks think about the politics of the state and [think] ‘do I really want to move there?’,” Wintrow said. “If you have legislators attacking the institution, why would I want to work there?”
Wintrow, who has more than 30 years of experience in higher education, says that Senate Bill 1274 was passed as a political statement and will have little impact on higher education.
Wintrow argues that recent bill enactments by the Idaho Legislature — the In God We Trust law, which mandates Idaho public schools to display posters in visible areas to have the national motto “In God We Trust” if the poster was donated to them by an institution, Senate Bill 1329, the Medical Decision-making Act, prohibiting children under 18 to access most medical care without parental consent and Senate Bill 1274 reflect the Idaho Legislature’s vision to “return to tradition” by infusing Christianity principles into law.
“People better wake up and the students in the backyard better wake up,” Wintrow said. “What this anti-DEI thing is, it’s just another broad attack to get people in line that you can’t promote a diverse, equitable, inclusive stance.”
Wintrow added that the impact from this bill can create a potential “chilly climate” on college campuses, referring to an environment where women face forms of discrimination by male professors and students.
Boise State sociology Professor Dr. Arthur Scarritt expressed the dangers of these bills impacting university’s access to “academic freedom”.
“These are definite overt threats to professors and to the heart of the university’s academic freedom,” Scarritt said. “Academic freedom is about being able to speak from your field and say things like, ‘Hey, we’re a racist society, and I know this because I have the statistics at hand.’”
Scarritt added the dangers of universities having a decreasing number of “tenured” professors across college campuses.
