Officials at Texas public universities are quietly trying to implement diversity, equity, and inclusion programs after a statewide ban on the ideology took effect Jan. 1, according to hidden camera footage published this week.

Undercover video captured by investigators from Accuracy in Media shows employees from multiple Texas universities admitting to finding “creative” ways to maintain DEI initiatives while still technically complying with the ban.

“We’re not allowed to say ‘DEI’ anymore,” an employee identified as Rachel Ball, assistant director for academic advising at Texas A&M at Galveston, said in one recording. “The new law that just started, so I think they’re calling it — I forget what the stupid title is now, but yeah, it pretty much is, yeah. So, it’s to represent all of the DEI work that we do on this campus. They just rebranded, so we’re still doing the same work. We just can’t call it that.”

The videos appear to confirm Washington Examiner reporting, days after the ban went into effect, that Texas schools are simply rebranding their DEI offices while keeping the ideology alive.

Accuracy in Media, which according to its website uses “citizen activism and investigative journalism to expose media bias, corruption, and public policy failings,” went to 24 campuses across Texas to obtain inside perspectives on how schools were responding to the ban.

When asked by an AIM operative whether there was any way of still doing “the DEI work” under the new Texas law, an employee identified as the University of Texas at Tyler’s director of student belonging, Tarecka Payne, said, “No, you can still do it. You just have to be creative. … We carry on. We do the work. I plot and plan.”

After reviewing the video, however, UT Tyler’a associate vice president for strategic communications media relations, Beverley Golden, told the Dallas Morning News an employee had been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of an investigation, adding, “The university fully follows all state and federal laws, regardless of what was portrayed in the video.”

Kevin Eltife, chairman of the UT System Board of Regents, added, “If and when we verify any noncompliance with state law, the UT System will ensure accountability.”

“The consequences for violations are clear, and under no circumstances will we allow UT institutions to jeopardize state funding that collectively educates more than 250,000 students at our institutions,” Eltife added.

Further confirming the undercover DEI push in Texas was a man identified as Marcus Brown, Tarleton State University academic coordinator, who agreed that his school could still do DEI under a different name, adding, “I’m not supposed to say that,” and further quipping jokingly, “So, no…”

Kevin Nguyen, University of Houston associate director of student advocacy, was identified as describing the university responses as “DEI lite, very lite.” Nguyen also explained that his office can launder the ideology through student groups, which can be advised by the office, so long as the DEI initiatives are not officially coming from it.

“Our investigation revealed that while some public colleges and universities in Texas are following the new law prohibiting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, many school officials have found ways to circumvent it,” AIM President Adam Guillette said in a press release. “DEI programs are a cancer that must be rooted out of our institutions, and that will require holding the radical administrators pushing this poisonous ideology accountable.”

Many of the Texas schools have found loopholes in the state ban by using different terms to accomplish the same underlying ideology of DEI. As the Washington Examiner reported, one term of art consistently used by DEI proponents is “belonging.”

In the video, a man identified as Joe Posada-Triana, director of underserved students at University of North Texas at Dallas, confirmed the same DEI work can continue under the new banner of “belonging,” explaining that the diversity and inclusion task force that was started at his school has simply become the “sense of belonging task force.”

UNT Dallas director of integrated communications Edward Kosowski, however, told the Morning News that his school is compliant with the new law, adding the school is “a majority-minority university, serving mostly local students from southern Dallas and surrounding areas. The university does not and has never had a DEI office.”

Texas Tech now characterizes its DEI initiatives as “campus access and engagement. Student success specialist Jess Sanchez is identified on one video explaining that most of the DEI work that was happening before the law is continuing under that new department.

Officials from Texas Tech said the statements made by employees in the video are “inaccurate and inconsistent,” adding, “We have emphasized our intent to abide not only by the letter of the law but the spirit of the law, and we will not engage in activities that violate state or federal law.”

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According to the Morning News, some schools responded by pointing out the secret nature of the recordings.

Texas A&M University System spokesman Jim Suydam said the network “takes the implementation of [the DEI ban] seriously and has established procedures to ensure all campuses are in full compliance with state law.”