RALEIGH, N.C. — The North Carolina House delayed for the second day in a row a vote on legislation that would eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state and local government.

But the Senate took up a different DEI bill later Wednesday, restricting those programs in higher education.

House Republicans had initially scheduled a vote on their anti-DEI measure for Tuesday afternoon, but the bill was pulled from that day’s calendar and rescheduled for a voting session on Wednesday. House Speaker Destin Hall on Wednesday pulled the bill for a second time, saying that a primary sponsor of the bill had an excused absence, and it would be taken up when the sponsor was available to present it on the floor.

The delays on the bill came as Democrats urged supporters to gather at the Legislative Building in anticipation of the vote, ready to protest the Republican effort to crack down on DEI programs and initiatives in the state. N.C. Democratic Party Chair Anderson Clayton was among the opponents of the bill present in the House gallery on Wednesday.

Hall had said on Tuesday the bill needed to be rescheduled for a vote Wednesday because there were a few additional amendments that were still being worked on.

The bill, which was spearheaded by House Majority Leader Brenden Jones, would ban state agencies and schools from using DEI in their hiring decisions or giving differential treatment or special benefits on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity, sexual orientation and more.

House Bill 171 would also ban agencies from using state funds to support DEI programs, or applying for federal grants that require compliance with DEI policies.

An earlier version of the bill would have covered non-state entities as well, and imposed criminal penalties for violations.

Jones later released an amended version of the bill that replaced the criminal penalties with civil penalties of up to $5,000, saying during a committee meeting: “We’ve heard your concerns, so we went in (and) we made reasonable adjustments — we’ve tightened the language. But the core mission of this bill still remains the same: to place merit back in the center of our state government.”

Vote delayed because of bill sponsor’s excused absence

After Wednesday’s session, Hall told reporters that Jones, the bill’s primary sponsor, was excused from session because “he had a college visit with one of his kids, and so the scheduling didn’t end up working out.”

Hall said Jones was also still working on a few amendments to the bill, but said he didn’t know what they would address or how many there were in total.

The speaker said he expects the bill to be taken up on the floor next week, and said it was not delayed because of the presence of protesters, saying that Republicans don’t make decisions about when bills are heard based on “one group or another being here on any given day.”

Hall also said there was no disunity among Republicans on the issue, telling reporters that he wasn’t aware of “any member of our caucus who is even considering voting no on that bill.”

He added that opponents of the bill “are always welcome, as long as they are ruly, and hopefully they can come back next week and hear a great debate, and learn about why it’s a great bill.”

Top House Democrat questions focus on DEI programs

After the House rescheduled its vote on the bill on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Robert Reives said GOP leaders in the lower chamber had done an “excellent job of staying focused on taking care of folks here in North Carolina” and avoiding “culture war” issues.

Speaking with reporters after the day’s session, Reives said he still has questions about why the House was taking aim at DEI programs and said the bill “does nothing to move North Carolinians forward.”

“It does nothing to make costs more affordable, it does nothing to raise your wages, it does nothing to help your education system, it does nothing to help your health care system, it does nothing to help state employees, and in fact, it puts a target on state employees’ backs,” Reives said.

On Wednesday, Reives said he’s hopeful the bill being delayed twice is a “recognition that this is not something that we need to be pushing.”

Clayton, the head of the N.C. Democratic Party, told The News & Observer that “pressure from the public is helpful” and it’s important for opponents of the bill to continue showing up to voting sessions to make their opposition known.

“We were here yesterday and we came back with more today, and I looked up at the gallery today and I said, ‘OK, we can mobilize people quickly,’” Clayton said.

“I think the legislature needs to know that, because for a long time these galleries sat empty, and they just got to do whatever they wanted to in broad daylight, and not have anybody in the public hear or hold them accountable, and we’re not going to let that happen anymore,” she said.

NC Senate approves another DEI bill

Over in the Senate, lawmakers took up their higher education DEI bill during a voting session that convened late Wednesday afternoon, approving the measure in a 28-18 vote.

Senate Bill 585, “Eliminating ‘DEI’ in Public Higher Ed,” would require the state’s top higher education governing boards to adopt policies banning diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and practices. Senate Republicans have already passed legislation that would ban DEI programs in K-12 public schools.

The measure is sponsored by Senate leader Phil Berger, Sen. Brad Overcash of Gaston County and Sen. Kevin Corbin, who represents several counties in Western North Carolina. An additional 20 Republican senators are cosponsors.

The bill is one of dozens around the country that have targeted DEI in higher education in recent years.

In a committee meeting last week, Overcash said the bill is not “barring diversity, equity and inclusion” because it does not define the term. But the measure explicitly bans DEI offices, and its practical impacts would almost certainly drastically scale back DEI programs and efforts, where they are not already restricted.

But at North Carolina’s public universities, for instance, many of the bill’s provisions are already in practice under an existing policy.

Last year, the UNC System Board of Governors, which sets policies for all 16 of the state’s public universities and the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, repealed a policy that required the schools to employ diversity officers and work toward diversity benchmarks, among other mandates.

The board replaced that DEI policy with a new policy, “Equality Within the University of North Carolina,” which emphasizes “institutional neutrality,” freedom of expression and nondiscrimination instead of the previous ideals of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Colloquially referred to as “the equality policy,” the UNC System’s new policy did not explicitly ban DEI offices or other initiatives by name. But its practical applications have resulted in all DEI offices across the 17-campus system closing or operating under new names and purposes. Additionally, dozens of DEI-related jobs were eliminated or restructured across the system as campuses worked to comply with the new restrictions.

SB 585, in essence, would codify in law those restrictions in the UNC System — and expand them to the state’s community colleges.

Democrats speak against bill

In the bill’s opening section, it references President Donald Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI and claims that “so-called ‘DEI’ programs promote a worldview that demands people, especially young students, judge others based on their race, sex, or other factors and attack true diversity of thought, stifle opportunity, and stoke division.”

The bill would ban community colleges and universities from operating DEI offices or other divisions, having positions of employment, or requiring students to take courses that promote “discriminatory practices” or “divisive concepts,” both of which are further defined in the bill.

A “discriminatory practice,” for example, might be “treating an individual differently solely to advantage or disadvantage that individual as compared to other individuals or groups. The bill’s list of banned “divisive concepts,” including that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” and “a meritocracy is inherently racist or sexist,” have appeared in a host of other anti-DEI bills considered, and in some cases approved, in recent years.

Such concepts “have no place in our community colleges and have no place in our UNC System,” Overcash said Wednesday when presenting the bill on the Senate floor.

Already, in response to one of Trump’s executive orders, the UNC System recently banned its universities from requiring students to take courses on DEI-related concepts, a move the bill would duplicate for community colleges.

Several Democrats spoke against both the bill and the concepts it enumerates.

Sen. Lisa Grafstein, a Democrat who represents Wake County, began her remarks by saying, “diversity, equity and inclusion are good — I think we need to say that.” Speaking to a specific example of one of the concepts listed in the bill, Grafstein said “no one believes that we should teach that one race or gender is better than another.”

“But that very concept gets taught every single day. It gets taught when, because of a lack of attention to diversity, those with authority, like a Board of Governors or other governing body or organization, is all or mostly one race or gender,” Grafstein said. “If you grow up seeing people of one race or gender making the decisions, you’re being taught that they are superior or inherently more worthy to govern.”

Governing boards across the UNC System, and particularly the Board of Governors, have been criticized in recent years for their lack of racial and gender diversity.

Noting that the bill would duplicate the UNC System’s existing policy, Grafstein introduced an amendment to change the bill’s title to “An Act to Do Absolutely Nothing.” The Senate voted to table the measure.

Sen. Natalie Murdock, a Democrat who represents Durham and Chatham counties, said that the bill is vague and echoed Grafstein’s sentiment that it “technically does not do a whole lot.”

“But that’s exactly the point,” Murdock argued, noting that it could have a “chilling effect” as campuses work to comply with the directives.

An initial version of the bill would have also banned campuses from establishing committees or other groups to investigate a “bias incident.” That language was removed and replaced with an amendment in a committee meeting last week, with the bill now prohibiting schools from establishing a process for “reporting or investigating offensive or unwanted speech that is protected by the First Amendment, including satire or speech labeled as microaggression.”

All public universities and community colleges would be required to attest annually, by Sept. 1, of their compliance with the bill, if it becomes law.

_____

©2025 The News & Observer. Visit at newsobserver.com. Distributed at Tribune Content Agency, LLC.