How DEI Smuggling Affects English Teachers and Students - Even in Southern Universities

In an ideal education setting, papers produced for literary criticism courses can pave the way for all workplace tasks, even corporate presentations, journalism, and screenwriting, where one must understand and see through others’ perspectives and different viewpoints. 

While always ready to grow intellectually, show some depth, and try new things, tenured professors and teaching students do not want to forcibly swallow DEI just to understand a theory – but they will be a captive audience anyway. 

The English faculty above them occasionally smuggle in DEI by not including those key words in class titles. By the same token, today’s literary theory syllabus might contain the words “queer” or “feminist” theory, and that readings featuring these key words will be assigned as part of the class discussion, but may not provide warnings indicating just how strongly DEI permeates even these arguments. 

Some course descriptions provide generic descriptions or only authors and book titles but no true description of what happens. Syllabi created in an effort to smuggle DEI understate things. 

In the higher-education setting, teachers teach what they have already been taught, including how to perfect the art of DEI smuggling — dressing it up as an interesting supplemental course helpful to create a “well-rounded” student, who becomes a better teacher. 

The University of Utah even has a “Teacher Education and Leadership” class in “Queer and Transgender Studies in Education,” according to the Young America’s Foundation 2026-27 Comedy and Tragedy Report.

This DEI smuggling has often happened in Southern universities. The same YAF report reveals that the University of Central Florida offers a class on “Queer Rhetoric and Queering Writing.” The University of Tennessee includes a class covering “Black Feminist Theory.” Even Texas Tech University promotes a class on “Literature, Social Justice, and the Environment.” 

Those classes could be influential to an English teaching degree; they will affect how the teaching student understands the literary and education disciplines, and classes like these do not seem credible or remotely useful to the non-ivory tower world. 

As a college zeitgeist, DEI smuggling has an enormous fallout effect. In an environment permeated by DEI, many English teaching students learn to self-censor while creating papers, mimicking the professor’s viewpoints and writing somewhat non-committal answers so they can get a good grade and get the paper over with, even if it is something about which they are passionate. 

In this context, students are not just learning to be even-handed or “neutral” on persuasive essay topics.

Writing about other worldviews might adversely affect their GPA, and entering this post-secondary English teaching profession is dependent on a master’s degree or PhD and on grades of B or above in graduate school. 

Putting more of the teacher hopeful’s future on the line, many teaching scholarships need a specific minimum GPA — frequently 3.0 or higher, but many hardworking students try everything to keep a 3.8-4.0 GPA. Finally, graduating with honors also requires a 3.8-4.0 GPA.

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Due to their misuse and narrow scope potentially limiting many students’ employment options to merely “women’s and gender studies” teaching jobs, which already have the reputation of not being in “the real world,” third- and fourth- wave feminist and queer theory cannot be reclaimed in the world of college education and should not be taught, especially in the Southern states, which frequently have more conservative cultures outside of the academia bubble. These theories motivate DEI smuggling. 

Luckily, the older literary theory can be reclaimed and engaged with in a manner that does not waste teaching students’ time or require English faculty to be trained in impractical theories. 

To name one example, Althusser’s Marxist theory can also be seen from a historical and Biblical worldview; it can help students think critically about capitalism vs. communism, government, economics, and world history. It can be interpreted as anti-capitalist, but as it is focused on world history knowledge rather than immoral content, it is important for students to know.

So professors, publishers, and various college higher-ups could likely benefit from developing a “state vs. promote” litmus test when deciding what theories should be included in class readings, similar to the "use vs. mention" distinction when quoting less desirable words in a lecture. Theories that state DEI content exists in a factual context aren't trying to tell the audience it is good, but theories promoting the content portray it as good. 

This may help restore emphasis on classical theories, including formalism and New Criticism, and avoid DEI-infested theories. Faculty and teaching students can benefit more from the older theories; these have a broad enough scope useful in more disciplines than just the DEI bubble. 

If there is enough pushback on DEI content, it may likely affect the accreditation of many universities and change the way post-secondary English teachers are prepared for the profession.