On January 14, 2025, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey issued Executive Order No. 3-25 which bans the use of state funds for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.

Although Heterodox Academy (HxA) generally supports the provisions of the order that prohibit mandatory DEI statements and “loyalty oaths”, Section 1B of the order raises significant concerns. Section 1B states:

[No] entity receiving state funds shall utilize state funds, property, or resources to...mandate any person to participate in, listen to, or receive any education, training, activities, procedures, or programming to the extent such education, training, activity, or procedure promotes or encourages the granting of preferences based on one person's particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin over that of another.

This language is expansive enough to impact curriculum and instruction. Such an intrusion into classroom instruction is not only at odds with an academic culture of open inquiry and truth-seeking, it is unconstitutional.

In Keyishian v. Board of Regents, the Supreme Court made it clear that, "Academic freedom is a special concern of the First Amendment, which does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom."

The executive order’s ban on teaching certain ideas in college classes is similar to a provision in Florida’s Stop WOKE Act that has been subject to a preliminary injunction by a federal court. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals denied Florida’s request to stay the preliminary injunction while its appeal is pending.

We call on Governor Morrisey to amend Executive Order No. 3-25 to clearly exempt classroom instruction to protect Academic Freedom in West Virginia.