Legislating Epistemic Oppression
Anti-“DEI” Laws and Racialized Knowledge Erasure
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19228481 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Eliza Epstein (0000-0002-6908-5087, The University of Texas at Austin, corresponding author), Liliana M Garces (0000-0002-8224-0512, The University of Texas at Austin), Jackie Pedota (0000-0002-4906-9522, The University of Texas at Austin) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Publication date | 2026-06-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Sociology of Race and Ethnicity (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2332-6492 • E-ISSN: 2332-6506 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/23326492261450518 |
| OpenAlex | W7163338018 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 40 |
We argue that anti-“DEI” legislation constitutes a form of state-sanctioned epistemic oppression that reproduces racial hierarchies by restructuring the boundaries of knowledge in U.S. higher education. Through a critical case study of Texas Senate Bill 17 at a public university in the state, we examine how this law operates as a racial project, invalidating intellectual and situated knowledge tied to racial justice, constraining equity-oriented labor, and producing an epistemic double-bind for faculty members and former administrators whose work interrogates race and racism. Through analysis of interviews, observations, and documents, we show how participants navigate dissonance and constrained agency within racialized hostile institutional environments, some enacting strategic refusals and adaptive practices aligned with the third university and the undercommons to refuse racialized knowledge erasure and reimagine liberatory futures. We contend that while anti-“DEI” laws accelerate racial harm, they also clarify the stakes of epistemic and racial justice, inviting renewed commitments to abolitionist inquiry, collective study, and the transformation of higher education as a site of racial equity
Agency (philosophy) · Cognitive dissonance · Legislation · Oppression · Race (biology) · Racialization · Racism · Critical Race Theory in Education · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies · Higher Education Research Studies
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A Third University Is Possible
Broke
The Reorder of Things
Lower Ed
Decolonizing Educational Research
Beyond Education
Refusing the University
The Stratification of Freedom
Epistemic Agency Under Oppression
White Guys on Campus
An Apartheid of Knowledge in Academia
Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression
Camouflaging Power and Privilege
The Reorder of Things
A Cautionary Tale
Epistemic exclusion
US ethnic studies and Third Worldism, 40 years later
Conceptualizing color-evasiveness
Historically White Universities and Plantation Politics
On University Abolition
Justice, Like Beauty, is in the Eye of the Beholder”
Faculty Hiring
We’re on Our Own Out Here”
Repressive Legalism
Breaking up with Deleuze
Black Feminist Thought
Epistemic oppression, resistance, and resurgence
A Theory of Racialized Organizations
Critical University Studies and the Crisis Consensus
Racialized Equity Labor, University Appropriation and Student Resistance
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |