Texas A&M-Commerce is offering an undergraduate justice, equity, diversity and inclusion certificate in the 2024-2025 academic year.
For the past few years, Americans have grown skeptical of the divisiveness of diversity, equity and inclusion ideology. In response to the outcry, multiple state legislatures—Texas included—have begun confronting DEI.
A May 2024 article from the left-wing Washington Post stated that DEI’s negative public image has triggered an attempted rebranding of the ideology. One of these brands is the term JEDI—or justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. The acronym matches the name of heroic space knights from the formerly popular Star Wars franchise, a property ruined by DEI after the Disney Corporation acquired it.
A September 2021 opinion piece published by the Scientific American described JEDI as “a popular term for branding academic committees and labeling STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) initiatives focused on social justice issues.” The authors added that JEDI had grown in use by an increasing number “of prominent institutions and organizations, including the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.”
Texas A&M-Commerce, a branch of the Texas A&M University System in the city of Commerce, offers an undergraduate JEDI certificate this academic year. It’s from their College of Innovation & Design. “Students will broadly explore the contours of social and cultural differences and their relationships with race, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality, social class, power, inequity, and justice,” the TAMU-Commerce course catalog stated. “Students will learn standard cultural competence models to understand the complexities of human diversity and cultural competence in modern society.”
“Cultural competence” is a term that has repeatedly surfaced in DEI projects.
Students have to complete 12 semester hours worth of courses to earn the certificate. Additionally, students have to participate in a “JEDI showcase” that’s offered at the end of the academic year. This is worth two more points toward the certificate completion.
Foundations of Cultural Competence is a required class for this certificate. Then, one class from three categories must be taken. These categories are “Race, Ethnicity, and Culture,” “Sex Gender, and Sexuality,” and “Social Class, Power, and Inequality.” Classes in these categories include “Introduction to Gender Studies,” “Social Class, Wealth/Power,” “Racial and Ethnic Diversity,” and “Topics in Sexuality Studies.”
The Texas A&M University System is supposedly a bastion of conservative values. Yet, this is now the second DEI certificate offered within TAMUS; the first was discovered at the Texas A&M Bush School in August 2024.
In September, Texas A&M announced that, due to lack of enrollment, it would deactivate an “LGBTQ” Studies Minor, Social Justice Certificate, as well as more than 30 other certificates and 13 minors. The courses that were required or optional for the deactivated programs will still be offered.
Texas Scorecard asked both TAMUS and TAMU-Commerce how the JEDI certificate and the classes for it reflect the conservative values of the institution. No response was provided before publication.
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