Dr. Elizabeth Palacios spent 40 years of her career at Baylor. During that time, she learned what it takes to succeed as a Hispanic woman within the predominantly white Baylor faculty.
“For a long time, I was the only minority faculty in the School of Education,” Palacios explained. “They would hire [minority faculty], but they just didn’t stay because of the culture. It was very cold, [but] because I had been there … I knew the culture of Baylor … so I knew the things to say. I knew how to say it.”
Knowing what to say and how to say it set Palacios up for success at Baylor. After graduating from the University, she took a job at Baylor as a receptionist, eventually working her way up to becoming dean of student life.
Even now, long after she retired from Baylor, she still sees and hears about faculty members facing the same barriers that she faced during her time at the University.
As of the fall 2025 semester, 73% of Baylor’s full-time faculty were white. However, in previous years, that percentage has been even higher. During the same semester, some 57% of Baylor’s undergraduate student population was white.
“I still hear about faculty of color not being tenured, because they’re not nice enough or collegial enough … [or] academically strong enough,” Palacios said. “The gatekeepers are of an older mindset. Christian or not, they’ve decided who’s worthy and who’s not.”
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The gatekeepers that Palacios refers to are those in positions of power throughout the University who determine who advances, who is given influence, and what voices are heard.
While Palacios credits some Baylor leaders, such as Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds, university president from 1981-1995, with championing her efforts to increase diversity at the University, she faced challenges from other leaders in the various spaces she found herself – leaders who were unaware of how their unconscious biases affected both faculty and students.
“Even [in] the seminary there was a professor who was like, ‘There’s no such thing as bias.’ … So we would have professors in different places where you would think they [should] have more empathy, but … they just felt like, ‘We don’t need all this,’” Palacios said.
But for each person she encountered who held her back or questioned her efforts, one question kept coming to mind.
“There are a lot of gatekeepers, and if they’re telling me that I can’t do this … what are they telling our students?” Palacios asked.
Throughout her time at Baylor, Palacios often worked outside her job description and behind the scenes to protect and advocate for minority student groups on campus. Eventually, Palacios was given a title to fit the work she had been doing for years and became the special assistant to the president on diversity for former Baylor President Ken Starr from 2016 to 2019.
But as controversy surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) has grown increasingly polarized, positions like the one Palacios held alongside President Starr are now few and far between – especially in Texas.
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In 2023, Governor Gregg Abbott signed legislation banning DEI offices and programs at public universities across Texas. As a result, schools began eliminating programs, positions, and offices that could be construed as promoting DEI from their campuses.
“What I saw at [The University of Texas at Austin], which is my alma mater as well, [was that] they disbanded classes. They fired professors who were amazing,” Palacios said.
Unlike UT Austin, Baylor is a private institution and is not legally required to follow the state’s anti-DEI bans. However, if it doesn’t, its funding could be jeopardized.
“We don’t rely on state funds, but we do receive federal funds because of all the different funds, loans, and grants,” explained Palacios. “We don’t have to comply, but it would be wise.”
Alongside statewide legislation in Texas, a national push toward disbanding DEI has affected universities across America. The Trump administration has threatened to withhold federal funding from colleges that do not end their DEI initiatives.
Palacios added that as an R1 institution, Baylor would likely want to remain in the “mainstream” alongside other top Texas universities regarding its DEI programming and offices.
The rhetoric used in these conversations plays a significant role in the changes being made.
“We can’t use diversity. It’s a bad word now,” Palacios said.
For example, the position formerly known as vice provost for faculty diversity and belonging, last held by Dr. Stephen B. Reid, is now vice provost for community engagement and belonging, currently held by Dr. Coretta M. Pittman, who took over the position in 2025. While the roles themselves are the same, the title used to describe them has changed.
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Palacios said she notices the word “belonging” being used more and more rather than “diversity,” “equity,” or “inclusion,” as programs across the state continue to be eliminated.
While the relationship between DEI and university life is currently drawing heightened attention in media and politics, it’s not the first time Baylor, as a private institution, has reacted to national pressure regarding DEI.
In 2014, the University committed to supporting diversity with its $10,000 Diversity Enhancement Grant, which individuals and groups could apply to help fund projects and events. The grant aligned with a push from the U.S. Department of Education, which was investing $96 million into grants to ensure college students had equal opportunity to earn their degrees.
It is also not the first time DEI has served as a point of contention within the University. In 2016, Dr. Edwin Trevathan stepped from his role as Baylor provost after acting for only a little over a semester. He came to Baylor from Saint Louis University, where he served as dean and professor of epidemiology in the College for Public Health and Social Justice and professor of neurology and pediatrics at SLU’s School of Medicine.
Reportedly, Trevathan’s stepping down was a result of his efforts to hire a chief diversity officer at Baylor.
“I’m pretty certain this must be connected to the [chief diversity officer issue]. He was only here eight months and this was the most widely broadcast thing on his agenda,” Dr. Jerry Park told Inside Higher Ed in 2016.
While many faculty members, like Park, supported Trevathan’s diversity initiative, others openly opposed it.
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Shortly before he stepped down, some of the concerns of Baylor faculty were outlined in an essay by political science professor Dr. Elizabeth Corey, published by the conservative think tank The Witherspoon Institute.
“Christian schools should think long and hard about exactly what kind of diversity they wish to promote before they sign their souls over to the secular rule of diversity officers,” Corey wrote. “If they don’t, they might live to regret it.”
Corey told Inside Higher Ed that her essay was not meant to be “antidiversity” but, rather, was meant to raise questions “about the kind of diversity that’s appropriate for Baylor, and the ways in which change should be implemented.”
Shortly after Trevathan stepped down and the diversity initiative was disbanded, Palacios went to President Starr and said there was still a need for critical conversations on diversity and inclusion to improve student life at Baylor.
“I came … to him, and I said, ‘Look, there’s a lot of folks that are upset [and] a lot of our students feel that they’re not being heard,’” Palacios said.
President Starr suggested weekly meetings with Palacios and named her special assistant to the president on diversity. Palacios also encouraged him to meet with student leaders to learn more about their needs and hopes for creating a more inclusive campus environment.
Judge Starr was removed as president from Baylor later that same year and, a month later, resigned his position as chancellor. However, Palacios continued in her role until 2019. She retired in 2022.
Shortly after Palacios stepped down from her role as special assistant to the president, Dr. Malcolm Foley was appointed special advisor to the president for equity and campus engagement in 2020. However, his title currently appears on Baylor’s website as special advisor to the president for campus engagement.
Although Foley’s role was not a direct replacement for Palacio’s position, since his appointment, he has picked up where she left off, championing efforts toward equity and inclusion at the University — particularly through reckoning with Baylor’s history of racial injustice.
In 2025, Baylor dedicated its Memorial to the Enslaved Persons on Founders Mall — dedicated to the enslaved people who helped build Baylor’s original campus in Independence.
“Christian institutions have an opportunity because our commitment to justice extends beyond government compliance,” Foley told Christianity Today in 2015. “This is something that we cannot water down.”
In organizing projects such as this against a nationwide anti-DEI push, Baylor is setting itself apart. Part of that, Palacios said, has to do with the University’s Christian mission.
“Being a Christian institution is freedom. … We have freedom to bring the Christian love, the belonging, the respect. Jesus mainly hung out with those who were most vulnerable,” Palacios said. “Jesus hung out with the ones who were most in need and were not given their respect and the space at the time. Who are we to say, then, we’re not going to do this because the government said we can’t? We don’t have to do it in the name of diversity. We do it in the name of Christianity.”
