UMVA has learned that students at Southern Illinois University’s Simmons Law School faced a stark ultimatum: attend a mandatory diversity, equity, and inclusion session or receive a “letter of reprimand” that would scar their permanent academic record.
The warning went further, stating the reprimand could be handed to the state bar during the character and fitness review, jeopardizing future legal careers.
An associate dean reassured a dissenting student that most who could not attend in person simply completed a make‑up assignment, but warned that failure to do so “within a reasonable period of time” would trigger the punitive letter.
Defending Education, a parental‑rights organization, obtained the email through persistent Freedom of Information Act requests, exposing the chilling language that the reprimand would be filed permanently and shared with the bar if requested.
Beyond the threat, internal communications revealed that the university’s curriculum frames the legal profession itself as “racially discriminatory,” embedding a narrative that law is inherently biased.
One slide from the DEI presentation declared, “Bullying disproportionately affects traditionally underrepresented groups,” while another bluntly claimed “lawyers of color were bullied more often than white lawyers.”
Erika Sanzi, senior director of communications at Defending Education, called the school’s tactics “indefensible and embarrassing,” emphasizing the coercive nature of forcing attendance under threat of career‑damaging sanctions.
This revelation arrives as the American Bar Association’s council debates rolling back a long‑standing rule that obliges law schools to champion DEI initiatives, a shift that could reshape accreditation standards for years to come.
