(UPDATED, 12:38 p.m., with updated information on state-approved exemptions for DEI-related courses.)

Idaho’s latest DEI law is probably not the last word on the issue.

The State Board of Education says Idaho’s four-year schools have done a good job of carrying out a sweeping 2025 law banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs. A legislative audit generally bears that out.

But the audit, released earlier this month, also points out glitches and gray areas, seven months after the law went into effect. A national group and an Idaho group are accusing the State Board of misinterpreting the law, which is forcing students to take DEI-laden courses.

Railing against DEI is a lot easier than regulating it.

Even when the Legislature passed what seemed like the anti-DEI law to end all anti-DEI laws.

Senate Bill 1198 — the 2025 law, and the byproduct of an ideologically stacked legislative task force — folded in pieces of old anti-DEI policy.

SB 1198 included bans on “preferential treatment” in college admissions and campus hiring. A 2024 law already addressed that.

SB 1198 codified a ban on DEI offices or departments, just months after the State Board adopted a policy that required colleges and universities to close their DEI-based student support centers and shift toward more generic student centers.

SB 1198 also carved out a significant change in the classroom. It bans curriculum that “requires or otherwise compels a student to enroll in a DEI-related course” in order to get a degree or certificate.

But there is a workaround — which underscores how tricky it is to regulate DEI while still allowing academic freedom. Colleges and universities can still require DEI-related courses, if they have no suitable substitute in the catalog. The State Board granted 11 exemptions for summer semester — the first round of classes affected by SB 1198. This number doubled last fall, with 22 state-issued exemptions.

Legislative auditors found other courses that might have fallen through the cracks.

They flagged an Idaho State University class, “Social Work in a Diverse World,” a requirement for a social work bachelor’s degree. Idaho State failed to request the exemption — “the result of confusion regarding a procedural issue,” President Robert Wagner said in a Jan. 9 letter to auditors. The State Board granted an exemption in December, in the middle of the timeframe of the audit.

Auditors also flagged three University of Idaho courses — “Teaching Culturally Diverse Learners,” “Gender and Sexual Diversity in Schools” and “Racial and Ethnic Diversity” — that are required for a teaching certificate.

U of I President C. Scott Green pushed back, somewhat, in his Jan. 9 letter to auditors. The “Teaching Culturally Diverse Learners” course is not DEI-derived, he said, but instead “focuses on course design, implementation, and teaching strategies for students of all backgrounds.” The U of I has since applied for exemptions for the other two classes, but Green said they are part of an elective certificate program “that no student is required to pursue.”

The State Board is scheduled to take up the two new U of I exemptions at its April meeting. The board has issued no additional exemptions for spring semester, spokeswoman Marissa Morrison said Thursday.

State Board Executive Director Jennifer White sees SB 1198 compliance as a work in progress.

“Work will be ongoing, but we are pleased that the audit identified only a few matters of concern,” White wrote in her Jan. 9 response to the audit. “We will continue to identify and correct issues as they arise at each institution.”

But two right-wing think tanks, the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute and the Idaho Freedom Foundation, say the State Board and the four-year schools have pushed the exemptions envelope too far.

Pointing to language in SB 1198, the two groups say the law allows exemptions only for programs “primarily focused on racial, ethnic, or gender studies.” This narrow exemption, they say, should not apply to majors such as sociology, social work or counseling.

“Exemptions were improperly granted,” Goldwater Institute attorney Stacy Skankey and Freedom Foundation President Ron Nate said in a Jan. 13 letter to Attorney General Raúl Labrador. “(The) easy exemption procedure allows nearly any degree program to mandate DEI in violation of the act.”

The two groups requested an investigation, and Labrador is working on it.

“We received the complaint and are investigating as required by Idaho law,” spokesman Damon Sidur said in an email Tuesday. “We don’t comment on pending investigations.”

The State Board isn’t saying much either.

“(We) will cooperate fully with the Idaho Attorney General’s Office,” Morrison said in an email Wednesday. “The Office cannot comment further at this time.”

What happens with Labrador’s investigation remains to be seen. It’s also too early to know if the Legislature — or more specifically, the hardline lawmakers who eagerly act on the Freedom Foundation’s wishes — will take up the issue.

Then again, why should the 2026 legislative session be any different than almost every other recent session? As the audit notes, legislators have tried to rein in DEI or social justice tenets through six separate laws — in 2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024.

That’s a long history. It speaks volumes about the relationship between the Legislature and the state’s colleges and universities. A climate clouded by distrust that seems to roll in every winter, like the murky gray temperature inversions that envelop the Statehouse. A climate that looms — perhaps not coincidentally — over the stalled search for a new Boise State University president.

Passed in 2025, SB 1198 is not the first anti-DEI law. Just the most recent one. And not necessarily the final one.

As the record shows, passing anti-DEI legislation is the easy part.

Kevin Richert writes a weekly analysis on education policy and education politics. Look for his stories each Thursday.