Wyoming Senate committee approves bill to restrict DEI offices and mandates at state entities

Senator Sherry Steinmetz, sponsor of Senate File 103, told the Agriculture, State & Public Lands & Water Resources Committee that she brought the bill to “terminate and defund diversity, equity and inclusion” at state entities and educational institutions.

The measure, as described by Steinmetz at the committee hearing, would prohibit state agencies, higher-education institutions and other entities that receive state appropriations from establishing DEI offices, requiring DEI statements, or promoting programs “designed or implemented in reference to race, color or ethnicity,” with repeated carve-outs in the text for activities necessary to comply with state or federal law or an applicable court order.

Supporters said the bill protects students and taxpayers from mandatory coursework and training they regard as ideological. “When children are coming home from school and saying that they wish that they weren’t white…