Originally posted on IdahoEdNews.org on May 16, 2025
BOISE, ID – Idaho colleges and universities will be able to seek leeway, as a sweeping anti-DEI law goes into effect.
The State Board of Education will consider exemptions for required summer classes that might otherwise violate the new law. The exemption plan is spelled out in a 10-page memo, which went out Friday to Idaho’s public colleges and universities.
Timing was the driving force behind the memo. Senate Bill 1198, a far-reaching law banning campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs, goes into effect on July 1. But summer semester is already under way on college campuses. So the memo focuses on summer classes that will still be in session on July 1 — and classes that will begin between July 1 and Aug. 15.
“(State Board staff) worked with higher education institutions to rapidly develop an interim process,” board Executive Director Jennifer White said in a statement Friday. “We sought to honor the Constitution, the law, legislative intent and board policy.”
The State Board’s memo represents an early response to SB 1198, the final higher education bill to come out of the 2025 Legislature. Lawmakers passed SB 1198 six weeks ago, and Gov. Brad Little quickly signed it into law.
The law attacks DEI on multiple fronts. For instance, it prohibits “preferential treatment” in admissions or hiring, DEI offices and officers and campus diversity training. But the State Board’s memo focuses on classroom restrictions.
Under the law, students cannot be required to take a “DEI-related course” in order to get a degree. But the State Board might exempt some required DEI-related classes — if the college or university has no other course offering that fulfills the degree requirement.
“The institution does not need to seek an exemption if it offers an alternative to a required DEI-related course, so long as the alternative course is not a ‘DEI-related course,’” the memo says.
Colleges and universities have three weeks to apply for exemptions for summer classes; the memo sets a June 6 deadline.
While the thrust of the board memo focuses on the summer semester, it also touches on the law’s long-term implications.
The law might force organizational changes and “adjustments to campus services” — even after a separate State Board policy, passed in December, already required colleges and universities to close DEI-based student support centers. The law might also affect “certain academic programs on campus,” according to the memo.
But the memo also says the law “does not ban the use of specific words in the classroom, even those listed in the definition of ‘DEI.’” The board also notes that students ultimately chart their own academic path.
“Postsecondary students enter into a voluntary higher educational experience. Students have the right, and corresponding responsibility, to engage in their learning and select the courses and programs most suitable for their own personal learning objectives.”