“Copy and Paste” Practices: A Multi-Site Critical Discourse Analysis of Arguments About Anti-DEI Legislation

Abstract

This manuscript presents the results of a critical discourse analysis designed to investigate how legislators and other actors leverage discursive strategies to frame the need for/impacts of state-level anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion (anti-DEI) legislation in 2023–2024. Using interrogation of discourses as illustrating social practices, we analyzed anti-DEI bills and media coverage in three states (Alabama, Florida, Nebraska). At the center of the debates were discourses about the delegitimization and re-legitimization of DEI efforts, who these initiatives affect, and the threats present to institutional structures. Proponents positioned DEI as divisive, not grounded in evidence, and not supported by the majority of citizens, while opponents argued banning DEI amounted to backtracking on racial progress and shortchanging students who would benefit from DEI practices. We also found that the arguments for and against these legislative measures were strikingly similar across state contexts, reflective of a nationalized anti-DEI discourse mobilized through model legislation introduced by right-wing thinktanks. Supporters of anti-DEI legislation framed DEI as amorphous — an agile and threatening concept — while higher education leaders appeared to remain silent or superficially neutral in response. We argue that said patterns are emblematic of social practices that maintain control in the anti-DEI legislative debates.

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