Kelly Solis’ 2020 freshman year at University of Texas at Austin, the state’s flagship, began with online classes, in forced isolation, because of the pandemic. She moved into a dorm to make connections, but struggled with loneliness and depression.
Her lifeline came when she heard a Latino therapist speak at the annual welcoming program for Latino students, Adelante, organized by Latinx Community Affairs, a student group at the university’s Multicultural Engagement Center. The help from the therapist and other academic and personal support she got with regular visits to the center eventually led her to drop thoughts of transferring to a school in her hometown of Houston.
“I had an instant support system from peers and mentors,” Solis, now a graduating senior, told NBC News. She said staff members would send her information on scholarships and other resources. “If they saw fliers with opportunities, they would pass it my way.”
It was crushing, then, when the university shuttered the Multicultural Engagement Center and defunded Latinx Community Affairs, which organizes Latino-focused programs including Adelante to keep students at the university and guide them to graduation and professional life, Solis said. Other groups at the center suffered the same fate.
Texas has energetically climbed aboard the conservative and right-wing campaign to eliminate public, corporate and nonprofit diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Its anti-DEI law, and laws and policies like it in other states, are wiping away tools like those that Solis tapped.
Latino enrollment in higher education institutions has been growing with the Hispanic population, and Latinos have made substantial strides in earning college degrees. But the elimination of DEI programs is occurring as Latinos’ degree-earning is still failing to keep pace with that of white students.
The share of white Americans 25 and older with a bachelor’s degrees or more, 41.8%, was twice that of Hispanics, 20.9%,…
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