How State Anti-DEI Policies and Initiatives Impact Legal Education

This blog post was co-written by Madison Watts and Joel Chanvisanuruk.

As law students cross the stage, faculty and deans place the traditional graduation hood on their shoulders to mark their achievement. For many students, representing their unique and personal journey as an underrepresented law student is honored with additional markers like a kente cloth stole, Black Law Student Association (BLSA) cords, or another culturally-based organization’s stole. These symbols recognize the identity that would have barred them from attaining a law degree in many states less than 70 years ago. Today, legislation in several states makes it risky for schools to permit their law students to wear symbols that mark their identity if that identity is classified as diverse.

Policy Changes and Institutional Compliance

Since 2023, more than two dozen states have passed laws restricting DEI in higher education. In 2025 alone, dozens of public institutions eliminated or significantly reduced Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) offices due to state policy actions, leaving underrepresented students with fewer options for support in navigating their pursuit of higher education. Ohio and Tennessee show the accelerating scope and impact of these types of policies. In Ohio, Senate Bill 1, signed into law in 2025, explicitly restricts DEI-related programming at public universities, including limits on offices, training, and student activities using university funds.

Tennessee’s approach to this legislation restricts DEI offices, as well as hiring practices and institutional programming, effectively prohibiting DEI departments at state-funded institutions while also limiting professional development initiatives. Risk-averse leaders throughout the state’s public university system raced to comply with these new restrictions, sometimes preemptively and with broader scope than required. Additionally, colleges and universities across the country, even in states without DEI-restrictions, have started to reduce the number of multicultural spaces, diversity requirements, and languages present on their campus.

Impact on Law School Experience and Support Systems

As unique colleges within broader university settings, law schools face heavy compliance burdens as the legislation – typically crafted to restrain large undergraduate programs – poses an ill fit for smaller, professional-study schools with their own accreditation standards and professional development expectations. Indeed, many law schools are finding themselves caught between state legislatures on one side and accreditors on the other. Recent debates surrounding the American Bar Association’s diversity standards underscore this tension.

Law school staff and faculty leaders in these states are in the challenging position of supporting the success and professional development of their students while maintaining compliance with often opaque regulations and restraints of state, federal, and accreditation agencies. As a result, today’s law students are experiencing a different educational environment than those who came before them, both inside and outside the classroom.

• Programs that historically support minority students, such as affinity-based professional groups or mentoring, identity-based commencement programming, and structured discussions of equity, are being reduced or eliminated.
• Law staff and faculty are learning that even basic acts, such as providing pizza for a meeting or presentation by an affinity law student group, are disallowed as prohibited co-sponsorship due to the use of university funds.
• More aggressive state anti-DEI laws also restrict law school curricula and activities, limiting course design, research, and classroom discussion.
• Educators are left to decide whether to avoid topics that may be perceived as politically sensitive out of concern of potential job loss, loss of state or federal funding, and lawsuits.

The 2026 Inflection Point and Opportunity

Against this backdrop, the 2026 gubernatorial elections represent a meaningful policy inflection point. Later this year, there will be 39 gubernatorial elections with 21 Governors who are either term-limited or not seeking reelection. Therefore, at a minimum, there will be at least 21 new Governors across the country by January 2027. Governors play a vital role in shaping higher education through budgetary authority, board appointments, and the approval or veto of legislation impacting higher education.

In addition, 46 states will hold legislative races with 82% of the nation’s state legislative seats on the ballot this year. As states continue to debate the future of DEI-related restrictions, state leaders will be critical in determining whether current policies are maintained, modified, or reversed.

Because state leaders will continue to play an increasingly vital role in higher education governance, the 2026 gubernatorial and legislative races offer a meaningful policy and advocacy window for shaping graduate and legal education. For law school staff, faculty, and students, this moment presents an opportunity to engage more intentionally in state policy conversations, elevate evidence on student outcomes and workforce, and advance legal education as a bipartisan priority that works best when diverse perspectives are not only present, but encouraged.