March 2, 2025
Texas Official In Tears After Lawmaker’s DEI Interrogation
Other Texas officials came to the defense of L'Oreal Stepney, the chairwoman of the Texas Water Development Board, and a Black woman.
L’Oreal Stepney, the chairwoman of the Texas Water Development Board, and a Black woman, received support from Texas lawmakers after a Feb. 27 subcommittee hearing in the Texas House of Representatives on budget recommendations turned into a referendum on diversity, equity and inclusion, which brought Chairwoman Stepney to tears.
According to KUT News, the hearing should have been routine, and was largely routine until Republican Rep. Brian Harrison hijacked the budget hearing and began peppering Stepney with questions regarding if the TWDB’s hiring practices were in compliance with the orders of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from state agencies.
For more than 15 minutes, chairwoman Stepney faced a line of questioning from Rep. Harrison that eventually led to him reading aloud the agency’s strategic plan.
This extended line of questioning, which forced the chairwoman to defend her resume and decades of public service, led to her becoming emotional and breaking down in tears, a rare occurrence for chairwoman Stepney.
According to Chron.com, Stepney, whom Abbott appointed, and later defended on social media, said in the hearing that she doesn’t usually get emotional.
However, she also took the time to commemorate nearly 33 years working for the State of Texas and listed two of her degrees from the University of Texas, one in aerospace engineering and the other in civil engineering as one of her many accolades and qualifications for her role.
Abbott’s push against DEI could rightfully be seen as the genesis of this ugly moment in the Texas House, but chairwoman Stepney still expressed her gratitude to Abbott in the hearing and recounted that serving Texas is an honor to her.
“I sat across the table from the EPA, IBWC, and U.S. Army Corp of Engineers, fighting the fight to make sure Texas was protected,” Stepney said, clutching onto her Kleenex. “When they disagreed, I went to bat for Texas; it has been my life’s honor.”
Rep. Harrison was not satisfied going after chairwoman Stepney, but also went after another Black board member, Deputy Executive Administrator Edna Jackson and acting Chief Financial Officer Georgia Sanchez.
These attacks spurred Rep. Nicole Collier, a Black Democrat representing Fort Worth to clarify that the “historically underutilized business” requirements present in the board’s guiding documents did not explicitly refer to race, as Rep. Harrison attempted to establish earlier in the proceedings.
Rep. Collier also weighed in on the notion that she, or any other Black person, has to be put in the position of justifying their Blackness just because it makes other people uncomfortable.
“I’m tired of having to justify my blackness, and if someone feels inferior to me because I am Black, then that is a matter that is something that has to do with them, not me,” Collier said. “To have to watch two Black women try to defend the need to correct 246 years of systemic racism when we had slavery is offensive. It is offensive to me, and it is offensive to all black people.”
After the exchange which led to Rep. Collier’s comments, Rep. Armando Walle, the chair of the subcommittee, comforted Stepney briefly before addressing Rep. Harrison and his offensive line of questioning.
“We’ve reached our goddamned limit already to attacks on people’s character, on people’s qualifications, based on only one single thing. The color of their skin. We’re proud Americans….That flag, it belongs to all of us. The rhetoric, the comments, the inuendo, the attacks on people’s character has to stop. … This must end. This must end,” Rep. Walle said.
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