Wyoming House decides UW DEI restrictions include private donations
Sherwood tried to exempt private dollars from the advancing anti-DEI mandate. “We want to eliminate the conversation,” a Freedom Caucus rep replied. The House also added medical education funding.
Veto-proof majorities in both the Wyoming House and Wyoming Senate approved a bill banning UW from spending money — public or otherwise — on diversity-oriented programs.
The bill was modified several times as it advanced through both chambers. The final version approved by the House on Thursday clarifies that UW will not be allowed to spend any money from any source on what the bill defines as DEI.
On the House floor, Albany County Rep. Trey Sherwood (HD-14) said it was inappropriate to use the state’s command of most university funding to exercise control over all of it.
“Consider that maybe there is a donor who wants to provide funding for a Black History Month program,” she said. “I don’t know that it’s clear in the existing language that that would be allowed. And so I do want us to consider … where our role as state-level appropriators starts and stops, and then where we start to impact private funds and donor intent.”
With a third reading amendment, Sherwood tried to restrict the prohibition on funding DEI to only the dollars UW receives from the state or federal government.
It would have modified a section of the bill to include the bolded text below:
As a condition of receiving or expending any monies or funds appropriated, each entity shall not expend any appropriated public funds or public funds received from bequests, charges, deposits, donations, endowments, fees, grants, gifts, tuition and any other source for programs or activities that, unless federal law or donor intent otherwise requires [engage in DEI].
If approved, Sherwood’s amendment would have allowed UW to keep funding diversity- or inclusivity-oriented programming with private donations.
“I think it’s really easy for us as collective appropriators to put restrictions, or expectations, on state funds, and when and where we accept federal funds,” Sherwood said. “But I think private monies get into a little bit of a gray line here.”
Sherwood’s amendment was defeated after a couple of high-ranking members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus spoke against it.
Gillette Rep. John Bear (HD-31) said the bill sends a “clear message” about Wyoming’s position on DEI and the amendment would contradict it.
“Here we are deciding whether we’re going to allow private funds to go against the policy that this bill is trying to put forward,” Bear said. “Now, does that mean that some grant monies will be at risk? Yes, it does. But should we be seeking grant money that goes in opposition to the heart of this bill? I think that’s the heart of this issue.”
Wheatland Rep. Jeremy Haroldson (HD-4) said the debate was worth having, and said he was somewhat on the fence about Sherwood’s amendment. But he ultimately opposed it.
“I stand 100% behind the idea that we want to eliminate the conversation of diversity, equity, inclusion, and what that has turned into in our day and age and … how that’s not serving us,” he said. “And so I believe that by doing this [passing the amendment], we do create a carveout.”
SF103 defines DEI as any program, training or event that promotes “differential treatment of or providing special benefits to persons on the basis of race, color or ethnicity.” This mirrors the language conservatives often use to describe DEI, but not how DEI programs describe themselves.
In addition to the funding restrictions, the bill also bans UW from requiring students take courses related to this definition of DEI, which the university does not do.
The House passed Senate File 103 with a 52-7 vote during which Albany County representatives voted down party lines.
Medical education funding
Thanks to another third reading amendment, the House’s version of SF103 now also includes $550,000 for a medical education partnership with the University of Utah.
Though unrelated to the bill’s original intent, the addition of these funds is meant to counter a recent decision by Senate leaders to ax their own chamber’s supplemental budget bill.
In even-numbered years, the state passes a two-year budget directing the distribution of state funds to all of its agencies. That includes the University of Wyoming, which last year received about $500 million for the 2025-2026 biennium.
In odd-numbered years, the legislature passes a supplemental budget bill, awarding additional monies for unanticipated or unanticipatable expenses.
While both chambers hammered out amendments to their own versions of that bill, Senate leaders announced this week they will not be passing a budget bill this year. They said they are preferring instead to wait and see how two big factors — the package of property tax relief they’re now working to pass and the shakeup of federal spending being attempted by the Trump Administration — play out.
This likely unprecedented move was announced Wednesday, and has already seen House members scrambling to inject funding into other bills.
On SF103’s third reading, Lander Rep. Lloyd Larsen (HD-54) brought an amendment adding just over half a million dollars to UW’s cut of the state budget.
UW requested this money for a partnership with UU that would send five Cowboy State students to study in the Beehive State.
The medical education program had not previously been linked with any DEI efforts or the movement to crack down on DEI. But lawmakers eager to pass the funding justified its inclusion in SF103 with the following paragraph:
Students receiving medical education and training under this section shall comply with the state of Utah’s diversity, equity and inclusion laws as they pertain to instruction and training provided at the University of Utah school of medicine.
Larsen said UW will lose this opportunity if it’s not able to secure the partnership this year.
“If we don’t want to use the seats, there’s other states that do,” he said, referencing without explicitly naming other “intermountain” states who would take Wyoming’s place.
Others were less convinced that the House should include $550,000 for a medical education program in a bill titled, “Terminating and defunding diversity, equity and inclusion.”
“I totally, totally sympathize with what has occurred and where we’re at in this body and what is happening down the hall, but I’m going to stand firm,” said Cheyenne Rep. Landon Brown (HD-9). “In my opinion, it is blatantly unconstitutional to alter this bill beyond its original purpose.”
Casper Rep. Steve Harshman (HD-37) said he supported the amendment because the state’s existing interstate medical education partnership — WWAMI — is full, receiving more applications each year than it has spots.
He said the Utah partnership would be “a great opportunity for five more of our kids.”
“These five slots will not stay forever,” Harshman said. “Maybe they’ll be there next year, but maybe they won’t. And as we try to tackle our frontier medicine challenges in this state, it’s a real small investment in our really sharp kids so they come back here and take care of us.”
The Freedom Caucus was divided. Bear advocated against the amendment to keep down spending. But the chair of the Freedom Caucus, Cody Rep. Rachel Rodriguez-Williams (HD-50), spoke in favor.
“I do look at it as an opportunity and investment,” she said.
The House voted 32-27 to adopt the amendment, securing the $550,000 in the chamber’s final version of the bill.
SF103 must now return to the Senate, which can either approve the additional spending with a concurrence vote, or fight it by rejecting concurrence and sending the bill to a conference committee.
Based on the quotes, DEI really scares the fragile, white males of the Freeloader Caucus. They desperately need all the special treatment they can get to keep their power?
Aren't these the people that insist money is speech? Would this, by their own logic, not be blatantly unconstitutional? Yeesh...