Updated April 30, 2025: The article was updated to include a response from TCC after publishing the story.
Two employees were fired, two others were disciplined and 48 events were canceled or modified due to Senate Bill 17 compliance, according to a TCC document obtained through an open records request by The Collegian.
The two fired employees, who worked in Organizational Excellence and Development, were terminated when the college was made aware of diversity, equity and inclusion content in a TCC mandatory training video.
One employee was disciplined for conducting a Microaggressions & Mental Health workshop, and another was disciplined for bringing the women in an administrative suite flowers with a card attached saying “Happy International Women’s Day.”
“I cannot go into specifics about employee discipline, but what I will say is that the statute requires that if we find that an employee violates SB-17, we are required by law to discipline, up to and including termination,” said General Counsel Antonio Allen in a Teams meeting on Aug. 30.
DEI Impact List obtained through an open records request by The Collegian
The 48 events celebrated or addressed heritage, race and ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation. They include Hispanic Heritage Month, Black History Month, Asian American Pacific Islander Month, Women’s History Month, Pride Month, Diwali events and the International Festival, all of which had been organized and hosted by the college in previous years.
The document showed that other cancellations or modifications included events related to women’s health, domestic violence and a showing of the sports movie “Glory Road.”
This information comes as students, faculty and staff are expressing fear and frustration over the state law that bans DEI in higher education and what they see as TCC’s overcompliance with it.
The law, which was passed by the Texas Legislature in 2023, opened the door for lots of questions from students and staff about its effect on how events are approved and organized.
It’s not just leaders and members of cultural clubs who are concerned about how the bill is being implemented, but all clubs that advocate and support diversity on campus.
“I think TCC has really chosen not to push back majorly against Texas and our current [U.S.] president on their stance on DEI,” said Marina Maranto, NE president of the Neurodiversity Club and the Tabletop Role-Playing Game Club. “And I think that’s a shame. I can understand the college’s stance and the reasons for it. I do still think it is a shame.”
The concern from students like Maranto is that if clubs and student organizations are further restricted, they will lose valuable college experiences.
“This community that we built will cease to exist,” Maranto said. “Studies and research have shown that once a student finds that community, finds a home on campus, they are much more successful.
While the bill doesn’t address disabilities, she said this could still impact a number of students, even in the Neurodiversity Club.
“I think you would see a lot of students not succeeding,” Maranto said. “I think right now, the autistic student graduation rate is already somewhere in the low teens. I would see that dropping even further.”
Staff and faculty are having to rework, cancel and even limit the support they can give to student clubs so that they are not disciplined or fired.
“I think as much as many of us disagree with the premise of this bill, we have to realize that this isn’t an option right now,” said Kristin Byrd, biology professor and former president of the NE Campus Faculty Association. “We don’t have any options. This is not something we can wiggle our way out of, so we have to work smarter and not be frustrated.”
Events across the district have been canceled or changed to avoid failing the DEI litmus test even though the law says student clubs and organizations can hold cultural events with conditions.
In a statement, Vice Chancellor of Communications and External Affairs Reginald Gates said that TCC is strongly dedicated to complying with SB-17.
“Our approach has been intentionally conservative to ensure that college programs, expenditures and employee actions remain within the clear boundaries of the statute, which places significant restrictions on institutional involvement in activities referencing race, color, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation,” Gates said.
The college’s internal guidelines were created after consulting with legal counsel and in accordance with the Texas Association of School Boards and other compliance authorities.
Richard Gonzalez, an author, columnist and Tarrant County resident, was invited to speak at the 15th annual Abrazando al Éxito event celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. The event was scheduled for Oct. 11, but according to Gonzales, he was informed over email on Sept. 27 that the event was canceled because it violated SB-17.
Gonzales said he was disappointed that TCC administrators, without the knowledge of the chancellor, canceled the event after people were invited, food was ordered and promotions went out.
“Learn to navigate SB-17 successfully. Communicate with the community your methods of honoring heritages without violating SB-17,” Gonzalez said at a TCC board meeting on Oct. 17. “Please be careful not to violate the First Amendment rights in your efforts to be so careful not to land on a landmine of SB-17.”
Gonzales, who advocates for education, said the state does not want to recognize the reality of racism in the country, so they want to stifle any discussion of that by not having any holidays about ethnicity.
“I think under the pretext of trying to make things colorblind, they [state officials] are reverting back to what this country unfortunately has experienced, and that is racism,” Gonzales said after he spoke out at an April 2 Tarrant County Commissioners Court meeting about redistricting.
Colleges and universities across the state are working to navigate the restrictions in the bill, whether it’s closing down their DEI office and transferring those employees to another department, laying them off or wiping their websites and manuals of all DEI terminology.
“Because they’re afraid to say Black, because they’re afraid to say Hispanic, they’re afraid to just say minority or different in general,” said Lauryn Sample, Black Student Union executive board member at South Campus on Community College Day at the State Capitol. “It makes it hard for us to just say what we are, who we are, what we stand for and what we’re looking to support.”
The TR Campus East Fork Gallery had organized an exhibit titled “The Talk” by artist Michael Darough, who is also the program administrator for the Texas Commission on the Arts. The exhibit ran from January to March 2024.
“The Talk” focused on the conversations between parents of color and their children about interacting with law enforcement.
The artist statement says that the images in the exhibit were created in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Darough said those images symbolize the stories that aren’t often told and don’t receive news coverage.
“We had close to 80 or 90 people packed into the art classroom to hear him speak from many, many different disciplines,” said TR art professor Janae Corrado. “We publicized his artist talk widely, and it was wonderful. He did a fantastic job, and it was just a full house. The student body, faculty and staff who attended his artist talk spoke very positively.”
The problem came when the event was archived online. When Corrado went to update the webpage with current gallery information, she noticed the link was dead. When she asked for the page link to be fixed, she was met with resistance.
“There has been some concern with the exhibit ‘The Talk’ in light of SB-17, so I have it as unpublished now, waiting for the OK to publish it again,” Corrado said she was told by TCC’s Digital Resources and Collection Management Department.”
These and other issues that continue to come up across the district are leaving people saying they feel frustrated and nervous about their future in higher education in Texas and America as a whole.
According to the bill, student organizations are exempt from the rules of SB-17.
Gates said the college continues to support students’ rights to assemble, speak and organize, consistent with the Texas Education Code and the protections afforded under federal and state law. However, employees must ensure that their support of students does not become an SB-17 violation.
“Particularly where state resources, employee time or institutional sponsorship is involved,” Gates said. “Striking this balance requires careful and deliberate review, and we continue to work with our campus leaders and legal counsel to navigate these complexities.”
The college’s SB-17 FAQ page states that the activities of a registered or recognized student organization are not prohibited under SB-17 and can be supported by the college through logistical and resource assistance. The approval is based on the TCC SB-17 decision tree.
However, according to the FAQ page, employees of the college cannot provide such support as building program agendas and determining guest speakers.
“The bill is vague enough in areas that it leaves it open to interpretation by individual institutions,” said Leigh-Anne Regenold, current NE Faculty Association president. “TCC, by its nature, is a more risk-averse institution than other institutions that may push the envelope and try and challenge things. Big, four-year schools are more likely to do that. But that’s not going to be TCC. That’s not how the institution has ever operated. They’re being protective of taxpayers’ dollars and those kinds of things.”
The SB-17 FAQ also states student clubs and organizations are allowed to host cultural events and invite speakers as long as it’s open to all students, faculty, staff, and the community without implying or enacting preferential treatment.
Not only has TCC canceled events they have hosted in the past, but it has also become increasingly difficult for students and faculty to plan events because the events and posters are being scrutinized by campus administrations.
“We were talking about doing a post election event where we talked about the election and what happened. You really can’t talk about voting trends without talking about race, gender and ethnicity,” said Regenold, assistant professor and department chair of government and paralegal studies. “That’s how we look at voting. And so, because particular groups vote as blocks, you have to mention that. I said, I just don’t think that we can do this panel and not be in violation of Senate Bill 17, in the way the TCC is looking at that.”
Prior to SB-17, club advisers were able to help students by actively participating in the event logistics and finding speakers. That is no longer the case when it comes to any event that could be considered to fall under DEI.
“If the students come up with the idea, and the students plan it, and the students invite the speaker, then it’s still allowable under the law,” Byrd said.
Each event must go through layers of compliance verification that require approval from a director and one person above them if students want to get an event approved.
In the case when a faculty member wants to plan an event, it goes through the department chair, the dean, the vice president of academic affairs and then to the president.
This process is creating a bottleneck, students say. Whether it’s re-wording flyers so that the names of events don’t have DEI terminology or it’s concerns about the speakers, new requirements have created frustration and fear of repercussions, according to one faculty member and one staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they fear retaliation.
Regarding the decision tree, Gates said TCC will continue to review and refine its guidelines to ensure its full compliance with the bill while maintaining an environment that respects the rights and responsibilities of all members of the college community.
Dallas College, on the other hand, allows cultural events and has been hosting these events on their campuses while TCC has chosen to cancel or change the events.
On its SB-17 FAQ, Dallas College frequently cites Section 51.9315 of the Texas Education Code, which bars institutions of higher education from denying a student organization any benefit that is generally available to student organizations if the denial is based on the organization’s political, philosophical, ideological, or academic viewpoint or content.
According to the webpage, this statute was enacted in 2019 through SB-18 regarding free speech on the campuses of Texas public higher educational institutions.
“While we are aware that different institutions may interpret the law in varying ways, our decisions reflect a careful and good-faith effort to uphold the letter and intent of the statute,” Gates said.
Allen met with faculty members on different campuses throughout the year to answer questions about SB-17 and what faculty can and cannot do.
“He started at the beginning and went through, ‘Here’s what the bill says.’ Gave us the actual wording. Here’s what is allowed, or what exceptions. Here are the things that are prohibited,” Byrd said. “So, it really gave us a lot of background information to start with. We did get questions over things like writing letters of recommendation, which was a big issue.”
Letters of recommendations for jobs, internships and scholarship references are areas where faculty and staff have to tread lightly due to the ban. TCC’s SB-17 page explicitly forbids employees from writing letters of recommendations based on race, gender and sexual orientation. Some internships, scholarships and grants have DEI wording in their applications. These are supported by grants intended to ensure that those institutions have diversity.
“My answer back then and even today is, ‘Let me write you a generic letter of recommendation,’”Regenold said. “I’m just
writing about my experience with you from a teacher/professor lens, all the things that you’ve done, wonderful leadership skills and group projects and doing things on time, all the things that we put in there.”
Faculty members are not just concerned about events but also the possibility of having their academic freedom taken away. Currently, the law doesn’t apply to the classroom.
“There is literally no way to talk about the 19th Amendment without talking about gender,” Regenold said. “There’s no way to talk about the 15th Amendment without talking about race. You literally cannot do that. And so, what I talk about in my classroom is not subject to Senate Bill 17, and this is a clear exception.”
Texas Republican Sen. Brandon Creighton, who proposed and was instrumental in the passing of SB-17, also proposed Senate Bill 37, which was passed on April 10 and has moved for consideration in the House.
The new bill would establish a Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Office of the Ombudsman, which could authorize civil penalties.
It would limit how faculty teach history, race and inequality while also giving people the ability to file complaints and sue colleges and faculty over curriculum.
Regenold said a component of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission’s criteria, includes that faculty have academic freedom. And SB-17 excludes that in certain ways for events and activities outside of the classroom, but faculty should have the right to engage in those things that support course learning objectives, she said.
“I can’t take out of my syllabus or the district master syllabi, discussions about things like discrimination based on race, gender or sexual orientation,” Regenold said. “I mean, we talk about that in the chapter on civil rights. I literally can’t take it out.”
Students say they understand that TCC is trying to follow the letter of the law, but they wish the school would make it easier for diverse clubs to express themselves on campus.
“We don’t want TCC to be defunded. TCC has done so much for me, so I never would want that to happen,” Sample said. “But it’s also just separating us more because we see how we’re being treated versus how other organizations are being treated, and it’s frustrating. So very frustrating.”
