The bill was authored by Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader (R-Piedmont) and Sen. Adam Pugh (R-Edmond). The House and Senate advanced the bill on party lines.
The law prevents higher education institutions from requiring DEI training, employee positions, departments or programs, “to the extent they grant preferential treatment based on one person’s particular race, color, ethnicity or national origin over another’s.” It bans universities from requiring anyone to receive DEI training and any job applicants from providing a DEI statement.
It does not apply to the individual instruction of faculty members, scholarly research, student organizations or guest speakers.
The law takes effect this July, but Oklahoma institutions have already been subject to nearly identical language in a Stitt executive order that took effect in May of 2024. The law codifies the existing order into state statute.
By July of 2026 and annually after that, colleges and universities will have to submit a certificate of compliance. Schools were already required to submit a letter of compliance when the executive order went into effect.
The executive order had already made waves at institutions like the University of Oklahoma. In May of 2024, OU announced it had axed the decades-old National Education for Women’s Leadership program. It also shut down its Gender + Equality Center and restructured its DEI-focused Student Life programs to comply with the order.
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