Texas passed a law banning DEI from public universities. Crystal clear. No ambiguity. Senate Bill 37 — the state legislature looked at the billions of dollars being funneled into campus diversity bureaucracies and said, “Knock it off.” And what did university staffers at the University of North Texas and UT-Arlington do? They got caught on hidden camera bragging about how they were still doing it anyway.

Spoiler alert: they’re unemployed now. Whoops!

Accuracy in Media — the group that sent undercover journalists into these universities — caught two staffers dead to rights. Paige Falco, a field education coordinator at UNT, was recorded saying, “There’s always ways we can still get around it.” Around what, Paige? Around the *law*? The law that your employer — a state-funded public university — is required to follow? That law?

Then there’s Melissa Cruz, an academic recruiter at UT-Arlington, who was even more brazen. She told the undercover reporter: “The intention is still the same. The research is still the same. The practice is still the same. It’s just called something different now.” They just renamed things. “Cultural competency hours” became “human services hours.” Same garbage, different label. Like putting a new wrapper on a stale candy bar and pretending it’s fresh.

This is what these people think of the law. This is what they think of the voters who elected the legislators who wrote the law. This is what they think of *you* — the taxpayers funding their salaries. They think they’re untouchable. They think they’re smarter than the system. They think some hidden camera is never going to show up and prove what we’ve all suspected: that these DEI true believers would rather break the law than give up their little ideological fiefdom on campus.

Well. Cameras did show up. And now Falco and Cruz are “no longer employed” by their respective universities. Both schools released statements confirming the departures. UT-Arlington said Cruz’s views “do not represent university policy.” UNT said Falco’s statements were “inconsistent with the university’s commitments” to comply with state law.

Translation: “We got caught and we’re throwing them overboard as fast as humanly possible.”

Now here’s the part that should make every parent in Texas sit up and pay attention. These weren’t rogue professors spouting off in a faculty lounge. These were *administrators* — the people who build the programs, recruit the students, and design the curriculum. When an administrator tells you on camera that the DEI ban changed nothing except the vocabulary, that’s not one person’s opinion. That’s a confession about institutional culture.

How many more Paige Falcos and Melissa Cruzes are still out there, running the same playbook, just keeping their mouths shut around strangers? We’d bet the answer is “a lot.” Because the dirty secret about DEI in higher education is that it was never just a program. It was a religion. And you don’t stop a religion by passing a law — you stop it by enforcing the law and firing people who violate it.

Which is exactly what just happened. And that’s the win here.

Texas didn’t just pass a ban and hope for the best. When the evidence showed up — on video, in their own words, zero ambiguity — the universities acted. People got fired. Consequences happened. In 2026 America, where government employees routinely ignore laws they don’t like and face zero repercussions, that’s actually refreshing.

This is also a massive win for undercover journalism. The same people who clap like trained seals for every “anonymous source” leak in the New York Times absolutely lose their minds when a conservative group sends an undercover reporter into a university and catches someone admitting they’re breaking the law. Funny how that works. Hidden cameras are “brave journalism” when 60 Minutes does it, but “deceptive tactics” when Accuracy in Media does it. We’re not buying it.

The recordings were made back in June and October of 2025, and the videos were released in early April. Within weeks, both staffers were gone. That’s a timeline that actually looks like accountability — not the usual government two-year investigation that ends with a sternly worded report nobody reads.

So to every university staffer in Texas who’s still quietly running DEI programs under a different name, relabeling your workshops, hiding your ideology behind “human services” jargon — we’ve got one piece of advice: check the person sitting across from you at your next meeting. Because they might be wearing a wire. And your boss already proved they’ll fire you the second the tape goes public.

Texas said no more DEI. They meant it. And two former university employees just found that out the hard way.