Georgia Senate passes ban on DEI in schools and colleges as 2025 session winds down
Sen. Max Burns. Ross Williams/Georgia Recorder
Lawmakers in the Senate concluded the 39th legislative day of the 2025 session in the early hours of Thursday morning by advancing a bill that would ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs or policies from all state public schools and universities.
The bill, which effectively hollowed out legislation originally aimed at increasing sick days and maternity leave for public school teachers, passed in a contentious 33-21 vote, restricting the freedom educational institutions have to discuss racial justice issues even as lawmakers across the hall voted to expand First Amendment protections based on religion only hours before.
House Bill 127's sponsor in the Senate, Sylvania Republican Sen. Max Burns, argued that the bill was aimed at preventing discrimination in Georgia's public educational institutions.
'DEI is the antithesis of equality,' Burns said on the Senate floor. 'If you believe in equality, if you believe in equal opportunity, this bill does not strip you of that. It enhances it.'
Democrats swiftly condemned the bill, arguing that a ban on DEI would be a return to an era of 'state-sponsored discrimination.' They also feared it could be used to censor topics like slavery's role in the civil war and other ways that race and racism have shaped American history.
'I don't want to say DEI, I want to talk about diversity, equity and inclusion,' said Derek Mallow, a Savannah Democrat. 'If there is a need to ban DEI, then what is the opposite to diversity? Well the opposite to diversity is uniformity, and to be uniform means that you lack any other options for anyone to be different, to look different, to talk different, to walk different, to be different.'
They also proposed a total of 20 amendments — the most on any individual bill in living memory — but all 20 amendments were dismissed without a vote by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.
'This is a sad day for the Georgia state Senate, one of the saddest I've ever been in in 10 years, quite frankly,' said Senate Minority Leader Harold Jones II, an Augusta Democrat.
'This doesn't represent the people of Georgia,' he continued. 'Tonight was a night the Republican Party said they're going to take Georgia backwards — backwards to days when people did not have full rights.'
The bill now returns to the House, which must agree to the Senate's amendments before the bill can advance to the governor's desk.
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