Records Show Anti-DEI Republican Helped Install Ideology At Texas Health Center

Republican Texas Rep. Wesley Hunt took part in embedding divisive racial and gender ideology into a Texas health center, despite rallying against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies during his time in office.

Hunt served on the board of Harris Center for Mental Health and Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities from January 2019 to March 2021, during which time he took part in multiple votes to approve contracts and funding for pro-DEI and gender ideology groups, as well as the hiring of a “queer, disabled Latin x” individual. A jail diversion program Hunt helped oversee at the center also partnered with a Soros-backed prosecutor to let accused criminals walk away with minimal oversight — often resulting in repeat offenses.

Records show Hunt was present for meetings in which lucrative contracts with organizations supporting leftist ideology were unanimously passed.

The board awarded Justice System Partners (JSP) a new, $151,000 contract in October 2019 “to provide an external evaluation of The Harris Center’s jail diversion program,” according to documents obtained by the DCNF. The left-leaning organization has argued that “structural racism exists both in society and within the criminal legal system,” and that the “intersection” of “race, skin tone, gender, disability, sexuality, age, and income” lead to unequal outcomes in the justice system, according to its website.

In 2017, JSP advocated ending cash bail for “defendants charged with serious but not violent crimes,” elevating analysts who argue it’s a matter of “personal freedom and liberty.”

Between fiscal years 2020 and 2021, the Center paid JSP $130,000 for “Consultation Services.” During that time period, JSP, in collaboration with The Harris Center, published a guide calling for “more just and equitable alternatives to incarceration” for specific racial or ethnic groups.

JSP continued advancing that framework in its 2023 “Equity Through Action” plan, which called for restructuring decision-making authority to prioritize outcome equity and for “diversifying decision-makers.”

“During his short time on the board, Wesley Hunt was one of the only voices pushing back. He challenged the left’s ideological insanity head-on, and ultimately walked away rather than legitimize woke nonsense,” a spokesman for Hunt’s campaign told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “That wasn’t an endorsement. It was a warning sign.”

“A wake-up call that hardened his resolve to dismantle these ideologies once and for all when he got to Congress. Even Elon Musk has commended Wesley on his anti-Woke and anti-DEI rhetoric and policies,” he added.

Hunt has been highly critical of DEI, asserting that such policies are “discriminatory” and that the focus should be on merit over race. Hunt celebrated the University of Texas in 2024 for abolishing its DEI departments, positing that DEI was the cause of rising antisemitism and attacks on First Amendment rights.

“The truth is simple: Wesley Hunt is surging, and the establishment is scrambling to stop him. We wish John Cornyn the best on his bronze place finish,” the spokesman said.

At another board meeting in 2019, a contract amendment worth an additional $40,000 was approved for the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) of Greater Houston to provide staff trainings for the Jail Diversion Program. NAMI’s 2019 legislative review report was littered with phrases such as “racial injustice,” “lived experience,” “inclusive and culturally competent care” and “racial profiling,” and mentioned the “stigma and discrimination” associated with “Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) and LGBTQI+” communities.

In 2020, Hunt was present when the board unanimously approved a contract renewal for NAMI to the tune of nearly $90,000. Shortly after, NAMI Greater Houston promoted “Minority” resources for “Unlearning and Transforming Racism,” according to an archived version of the website, which led to a site explaining that the phrase “All Lives Matter” was “problematic” and featured links for “Deconstructing White Privilege” and understanding “racism in America.”

A May 2020 NAMI Greater Houston page also called racism “a public health crisis.”

NAMI openly advocates for addressing “disparities in [mental health and substance use disorder] services and trauma for people of color, … LGBTQ+ persons, children in foster care, and other groups.” NAMI’s website actively promotes resources for “LGBTQ+” and “Transgender youth,” including talklines and chatrooms for those under 19 years old where minors can discuss “sexual orientation or gender identity/expression issues.” The organization also supports “Culturally Competent Care” that focuses specifically on race.

In a February 2020 meeting with Hunt present, the board unanimously voted to add Gabriel Cazares to the Intellectual Developmental Disabilities Public Advisory Council (IDD-PAC) as an “Organizational Representative,” meeting documents show. Cazares at the time was director of the Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities, where he used the position to “embe[d] equity and access across all departments,” to “ensure full civic participation for BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, immigrant, and low-income disabled communities,” and to deliver disability rights training “through a justice-oriented, intersectional lens,” according to his LinkedIn.

Cazares’s prior experience included The Latino Racial Justice Circle, a group he said “financially supports” those facing immigration-related legal costs and worked to “educate” the public about “undocumented communities” by “centering their voices and experiences,” according to his LinkedIn.

Cazares was described as “a queer, disabled Latin x” person who is “particularly drawn to intersectional movements that center the voices of queer, disabled, and immigrant people of color,” in a 2020 Q&A with Equality Texas. He told the organization that “wokeness” must go beyond social media comments, asking, “What are you doing on a daily basis to examine your privilege, the ways you benefit from White supremacy, and what steps are you taking to dismantle those systems of oppression?”

In 2018, before Hunt joined the board, the Center partnered with the first Soros-backed district attorney in Texas, Kim Ogg, as part of a jail diversion program for the mentally ill. The program allowed more than 6,000 offenders to sidestep incarceration before being formally charged, and leave of their own volition at any time “in order to avoid booking people in the jail entirely.”

Soros reportedly spent upwards of half a million dollars to get Ogg elected in 2016.

According to a Harris Center slideshow presentation, the majority of individuals it serves have committed a Class B misdemeanor, the second most severe, which can include criminal mischief, DWI, property theft and criminal trespassing.

The Center also serves a small portion of Class A misdemeanor offenders, the highest level non-felony offense in the state, which includes domestic assault, DWI, criminal trespassing, property theft of up to $2,500, vehicular burglary and resisting arrest. These crimes are usually punishable by up to a year in jail and/or a fine of up to $4,000 in Texas.

About 47% of individuals brought into the Harris Center’s diversion program went on to reoffend as of 2019. Some offenders returned to the diversion center over 20 times, and one individual was brought back around 80 times, the organization’s CEO told the Texas Observer in 2023.

One Harris County woman who was arrested in 2020 for methamphetamine possession spent two years rotating between jail, diversion programs and mental health treatments, according to the New York Times. Despite being declared unfit to stand trial due to “severe and abnormal mental health, emotional or physical distress,” the woman was allowed to visit her newborn daughter, and was promptly “charged with stomping, kicking and striking her.”

Though Hunt voted for a DEI agenda at several board meetings, he was noticeably absent from other key votes. Hunt reportedly missed more than 70 percent of the board’s meetings from January 2019 to October 2020, according to the Lone Star Project. Similarly, in Congress, Hunt missed the most votes of any Republican in 2025, and even more than Democratic Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva, who died in March.

At a 2019 meeting Hunt did not attend, the board passed a two-year Cultural Competency and Diversity Plan, which is described as “a framework to embed cultural diversity in all the department’s services, programs and policies.”

The plan defines “cultural competence” as “staying open-minded” and commits the center to annual “diversity and cultural competency” training for all staff, including instruction on gender, sexual orientation, spiritual beliefs, and other identity factors, with an emphasis on promoting “inclusion.”

The Harris Center also boasted its “formal Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) strategy,” which it uses “to track meaningful D&I metrics” and “for attracting diverse candidates,” according to its fiscal year 2021-22 budget. It also mentioned a “staff-composed Diversity and Inclusion council,” the “Harris Center Inclusion Hub.”

The budget also listed Montrose Counseling as a “key external stakeholder.” Montrose is a “LGBTQ+”-focused organization that hosts Gender and Sexuality Alliance trainings and speaks out against bans on sex changes for children.

“To our trans youth, I want to say this: We see you. We love you. We are here for you,” Montrose wrote in response to the Texas Supreme Court decision upholding the state’s ban on sex changes for minors.

The DCNF previously reported Hunt’s ties to Houston’s prestigious St. John’s School, where he seemingly helped make DEI “foundational” to its policies and curriculum.

Hunt first ran for congress in 2020 and earned the Republican nomination, though he was defeated by Democrat incumbent Lizzie Fletcher. He was later elected to Texas’ 38th Congressional district in 2023 and won reelection in 2024.