Tag: DEI

  • Federal Education Cuts and Trump DEI Demands Leave States, Teachers in Limbo – The 74

    Federal Education Cuts and Trump DEI Demands Leave States, Teachers in Limbo – The 74


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    Early this month, the U.S. Department of Education issued an ultimatum to K-12 public schools and state education agencies: Certify that you are not engaging in discrimination under the banner of diversity, equity and inclusion, or risk losing federal funding — including billions in support for low-income students.

    The backlash was immediate. Some states with Democratic governors refused to comply, arguing that the directive lacks legal basis, fails to clearly define what constitutes “illegal DEI practices,” and threatens vital equity-based initiatives in their schools.

    After lawsuits from the National Education Association teachers union and the American Civil Liberties Union, the Department of Education agreed to delay enforcement until after April 24.

    But states across the country, both liberal- and conservative-led, are worried about losing other aid: the pandemic-era money that in some cases they’ve already spent or committed to spending.

    The Department of Education has long played a critical role in distributing federal funds to states for K-12 education, including Title I grants to boost staffing in schools with high percentages of low-income students, and emergency relief like that provided during the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Conservative-led states — particularly Mississippi, South Dakota and Arkansas — rely the most heavily on these funds to sustain services in high-need districts.

    The 15 states with the highest percentage of their K-12 budget coming from federal funding in fiscal year 2022 — the latest year with data available from the National Center for Education Statistics — voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Similarly, 10 of the 15 states receiving the highest amounts of Title I funding in fiscal year 2024 also voted for Trump.

    Mississippi and Kentucky have sent letters to the Department of Education expressing concern over halted pandemic aid.

    The clash over federal funding comes even as the future of the Department of Education is murky, given President Donald Trump’s pledge to dismantle the department.

    DEI-related cuts

    In letters to the Department of Education, state officials and superintendents in Illinois, New York and Wisconsin pushed back against the DEI directive.

    New York officials said they would not provide additional certification beyond what the state already has done, asserting that there “are no federal or State laws prohibiting the principles of DEI.” Illinois Superintendent Tony Sanders wrote that he was concerned that the Department of Education was changing the conditions of federal funding without a formal administrative process. Wisconsin Superintendent Jill Underly questioned the legality of the order.

    New York State Department of Education Counsel and Deputy Commissioner Daniel Morton-Bentley noted that the federal department’s current stance on DEI starkly contrasts with its position during Trump’s first term, when then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos supported such efforts.

    Colorado and California also confirmed they would not comply with the Department of Education’s order.

    While some states with liberal leaders are gearing up for legal battles and possible revocation of funding, conservative-led states such as Florida have embraced the federal directive as part of a broader push to reshape public education.

    In Florida, anti-DEI laws have been in place dating back to 2023. In fact, many school districts and the state education department say they plan to follow the federal department’s directives, noting the similar state laws.

    Pandemic aid cancellations

    In March, the Department of Education abruptly rescinded previously approved extensions of pandemic-era aid, ending access to funds months ahead of the original March 2026 deadline.

    When the Massachusetts governor’s office voiced concern over that decision, the federal department’s reply on social media was blunt: “COVID is over.”

    Sixteen mostly Democratic-led states and the District of Columbia filed a federal lawsuit against the Department of Education and Secretary Linda McMahon, challenging the abrupt rescission of previously approved extensions for spending COVID-19 education relief funds.

    But backlash against abrupt federal cuts to education has not been limited to blue states.

    Mississippi’s Department of Education warned the cuts would jeopardize more than $137 million in already obligated funds, slated for literacy initiatives, mental health services and infrastructure repairs. “The impact of this sudden reversal is detrimental to Mississippi students,” state Superintendent Lance Evans wrote in a letter to McMahon.

    The letter also outlines the state’s repeated — but unsuccessful — efforts to draw down millions in approved funds since February.

    Shanderia Minor, a spokesperson for the Mississippi education department, told Stateline the agency is awaiting next steps and direction about the funds and federal directives.

    In Kentucky, state Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher told districts — which stand to lose tens of millions in pandemic aid — that abrupt federal changes leave them “in a difficult position,” with schools already having committed funds to teacher training and facility upgrades.

    According to Kentucky Department of Education spokesperson Jennifer Ginn, the state has about $18 million in unspent pandemic aid funds left to distribute to districts. And districts have about $38 million in unspent funds, for a total $56 million that could be lost.

    Lauren Farrow, a former Florida public school teacher, told Stateline that schools that receive Title I money are already underfunded — and the federal threat only widens the gap.

    “Florida is pouring billions into education — but where is it going? Because we’re not seeing it in schools, especially not in Title I schools,” said Farrow. “I taught five minutes away from a wealthier school, and we didn’t even have pencils. Teachers were buying shoes for students. Why is that still happening?”

    Effects in the classroom

    Tafshier Cosby, senior director of the Center for Organizing and Partnerships at the National Parents Union, a parents advocacy group, told Stateline that while most families don’t fully understand the various school funding systems, they feel the impact of cuts in the classroom.

    Cosby said parents are worried about the loss of support services for students with disabilities, Title I impacts, and how debates about DEI may deflect from more urgent needs like literacy and teacher support.

    “We’ve been clear: DEI isn’t the federal government’s role — it’s up to states,” she said. “But the confusion is real. And the impact could be devastating.”

    Today, as a consultant working with teachers across Florida’s Orange County Public Schools — one of the largest districts in the country — Farrow says many educators are fearful and confused about how to support their students under changing DEI laws.

    “Teachers are asking, ‘Does this mean I can’t seat a student with glasses at the front of the room anymore?’ There’s so much fear around what we’re allowed to do now.”

    “There’s no one giving teachers guidance or even basic acknowledgment. We’re just left wondering what we’re allowed to say or do — and that’s dangerous.”

    Amanda Hernández contributed to this report. Stateline reporter Robbie Sequeira can be reached at [email protected].

    Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: [email protected].


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  • Some DEI Programs Are Vulnerable, Not Illegal (opinion)

    Some DEI Programs Are Vulnerable, Not Illegal (opinion)

    The Trump administration’s directives on diversity, equity and inclusion have wreaked havoc across the higher education landscape. Confusion persists about whether all DEI activities are forbidden or just ones that are officially illegal. To top it off, there’s much bewilderment about what exactly constitutes an “illegal DEI” activity.

    The ambiguity is a feature, not a bug. When people are confused about what’s legal or not, they’ll overcorrect out of fear. As a result, we see colleges and universities scrubbing DEI websites and cutting diversity-related programming. The outcome? A hasty, often over-the-top retreat from efforts that serve students and faculty alike.

    Critically, some of the programs deemed illegal by the Trump administration have not been ruled unlawful in the courts, such as scholarships and prizes that consider race or ethnicity in the selection process. The more accurate term to describe them is “vulnerable” rather than “illegal.” In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the Supreme Court specifically struck down a form of race-conscious admissions. While a court technically could apply SFFA in the future to render consideration of race in scholarships and recruitment efforts illegal, that day has yet to come, despite the current administration’s faulty interpretation of the ruling.

    Even Ed Blum, who organized the SFFA lawsuits, acknowledges this distinction, as reported in Inside Higher Ed: “Blum doesn’t actually believe the [SFFA] decision itself extends to those programs [e.g., race-conscious scholarships, internships or pre-college programs]. He does think they’re illegal—there just hasn’t been a successful case challenging them yet.”

    “I haven’t really made myself clear on this, which is my fault,” Blum told Inside Higher Ed in February, “but the SFFA opinion didn’t change the law for those policies.”

    So what does that mean for colleges and universities? The fuzziness over the legality of traditional race-conscious scholarships and recruitment programs will remain until the question is decided by the courts. While the majority ruling in SFFA led some to assume that all race-conscious programs will be deemed unconstitutional, the outcome is unknown. Courts could view the stakes or dynamics of nonadmissions programs (e.g., scholarships, outreach) as differing enough from the hypercompetitive context of selective college admissions to allow continued consideration of race. Institutions and organizations could also argue that race-conscious programs are needed to address specific, documented historic discrimination. This argument is different from defending race-conscious initiatives due to broad societal discrimination, as noted by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

    Likely, many institutions and organizations will move away from using race/ethnicity in the selection process for scholarships and other nonadmissions programs, out of fear of litigation and threats of federal funding being withdrawn. However, they may retool selection processes to consider factors related to their missions and goals, such as prioritizing those who show a commitment to supporting historically underserved populations. Further, if the ruling in SFFA is going to be used to attack nonadmissions programs, we can’t forget that it also affirms the right of programs to consider individuals’ experiences related to race. As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote, “Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.”

    The Ph.D. Project, the focus of Title VI investigations by the Department of Education, is an example of a program that was, in prior iterations, vulnerable but not necessarily illegal. The department announced last month that it had launched investigations of 45 universities over their partnerships with the Ph.D. Project, alleging that the nonprofit, which offers mentorship, networking and support for prospective Ph.D. candidates in business, “limits eligibility based on the race of participants.”

    The Ph.D. Project has already said that it changed its eligibility criteria earlier this year to be open to anyone who “is interested in helping to expand and broaden the pool of [business] talent”—so what will become of the investigations? Quite possibly, the Education Department will accuse institutions of breaking the law for partnering with an outreach program that in prior iterations considered race in its selection process—which is how the department likes to interpret SFFA, but that is still unsettled legal territory. Courts likely won’t hear a case on the Ph.D. Project because the program has already changed its selection criteria, so we still won’t know whether it’s legal or not to consider race in outreach programs. Until that question goes to court, we’ll probably have institutional decision-making driven more by the chilling effects of the Title VI investigations as opposed to actual law.

    While programs that consider race in selection criteria are vulnerable, there are plenty of diversity-related programs and initiatives that are not, or should not be as long as they are open to all students. Programs like speaker series, workshops, lunch and learns, training programs, cultural events, resource websites, racial/ethnic or culturally focused student organizations, administrative infrastructure, and task forces related to advancing a more supportive and inclusive environment—all of these can continue to play a critical part in advancing an institution’s mission and goals.

    In spite of this, the Trump administration recently proclaimed that DEI programs fuel “division and hatred” and ordered Harvard to “shutter such programs.” However, in previous communications, even the Trump administration has recognized that common DEI initiatives “do not inherently violate federal civil rights laws,” as noted by a group of leading law faculty. The directive to Harvard is serious overreach on multiple levels. We can only hope that Harvard will not capitulate to the administration’s demands and will defend its rights as an institution.

    Over all, institutions must resist panic-driven overcorrections. When vulnerable programs are threatened, institutions with the resources to do so should defend them in court. In other circumstances, retooling programs, rather than eliminating them, may be necessary. Institutions should not abandon diversity, equity and inclusion efforts out of fear; instead, they should seek to support diversity both lawfully and well.

    The Trump administration’s strategy is clear: sow doubt and encourage institutions to retreat. Instead of gutting diversity-related efforts wholesale, institutions need to take a more thoughtful approach. Our students depend on it, and so does the future of education.

    Julie J. Park is a professor of education at the University of Maryland, College Park, and served as a consulting expert on the side of Harvard College in SFFA v. Harvard. She is the author of the upcoming book Race, Class, and Affirmative Action: A New Era in College Admissions, as well as two other books on race-conscious admissions.

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  • Education Dept. Agrees to Push DEI Compliance Deadline

    Education Dept. Agrees to Push DEI Compliance Deadline

    State education agencies are no longer bound to certify their compliance with President Donald Trump’s executive orders and guidance memos banning diversity, equity and inclusion programs in order to continue receiving federal funds—at least for now.

    K-12 school districts were originally required to prove they had met the president’s standard by April 14. But now, as the result of an agreement reached Thursday in a lawsuit, the Department of Education cannot enforce that requirement or enact any penalties until April 24. The move to require school systems to certify their compliance was one of the department’s first actions since releasing the Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter that declared all race-conscious student programming, resources and financial aid illegal.

    The National Education Association challenged that letter in a lawsuit and then moved for a temporary restraining order to block the certification requirement. (The department notified state educational agencies of the deadline April 3.)

    In addition to not enforcing the certification requirement, the Education Department also agreed not to take any enforcement action related to the Feb. 14 guidance until April 24, though that doesn’t cover any other investigations based on race discrimination.

    The plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, still want to block the Dear Colleague letter entirely. But they see the agreement as a positive step.

    “This pause in enforcement provides immediate relief to schools across the country while the broader legal challenge continues,” the plaintiffs said in a news release.

    A judge will hold a hearing April 17 to consider the NEA’s motion for a preliminary injunction, which could block the guidance entirely.

    For more information on this case and others, check out Inside Higher Ed’s lawsuit tracker here.

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  • UConn Med now lets students opt out of DEI pledge of allegiance

    UConn Med now lets students opt out of DEI pledge of allegiance

    Great news: UConn School of Medicine administrators are going scalpels down on the school’s attempt to forcibly transplant politics and ideology into its incoming student body. 

    In 2022, UConn finalized its own version of the Hippocratic Oath, which includes a promise to “actively support policies that promote social justice and specifically work to dismantle policies that perpetuate inequities, exclusion, discrimination and racism.” Most recently, UConn required the incoming class of 2028 to pledge allegiance not simply to patient care, but to support diversity, equity, and inclusion.

    In January, an admissions staff member at the medical school told FIRE that the oath is mandatory for students. That’s a problem because, as a public university, UConn is strictly bound by the First Amendment and cannot compel students to voice beliefs they do not hold. 

    Concerned about this and similar cases, FIRE wrote the UConn School of Medicine on Jan. 31, calling on the school to make clear that students have every right to refuse to pledge allegiance to DEI. 

    We got back radio silence.

    After following up via email, we finally got some good news from UConn. The school’s communications director clarified, “UConn’s medical school does not mandate nor monitor a student’s reciting of all or part of our Hippocratic Oath, nor do we discipline any student for choosing to not recite the oath or any part of it.”

    Public institutions have every right to try to address any bias that might impact medical education. But forcing med students to pledge themselves to DEI — or any other political ideology — is First Amendment malpractice. They have no more right to do so than they do to force students to pledge allegiance to a political figure, or to the American flag. 

    In the landmark 1943 case West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, the Supreme Court held that students could not be forced to salute the American flag, saying, “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” 

    In the medical context it gets even worse, as these nebulous commitments could become de facto professionalism standards, with students facing punishment for failing to uphold them. (After all, they took an oath!) What, exactly, must a medical student do to “support policies that promote social justice?” Presumably, that would be for UConn to determine. And if a student disagrees with UConn’s definition of “social justice” or chooses not to promote it in the prescribed way, could she be dismissed for violating her oath? 

    FIRE has repeatedly seen administrators of professional programs — including medicine, dentistry, law, and mortuary science — deploy ambiguous and arbitrarily defined “professionalism” standards to punish students for otherwise protected speech. It’s no stretch to imagine it happening here as well.

    UConn isn’t alone in making changes to its version of the Hippocratic Oath. Other prestigious medical schools, including those at Harvard, Columbia, Washington University, Pitt Med, and the Icahn School of Medicine have adopted similarly updated oaths in recent years. However, not all schools compel students to recite such oaths. 

    When we raised concerns in 2022 about the University of Minnesota Medical School’s oath, which includes an affirmation that the school is on indigenous land and a vow to fight “white supremacy,” the university confirmed that students are not obligated to recite it. 

    We’re glad that UConn has now done the same. FIRE celebrates this surgical success, and we won’t stand by while schools try to graft ideology onto student minds.

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  • DEI Under Attack: The Truth from the Frontlines of Academia

    DEI Under Attack: The Truth from the Frontlines of Academia

    Moderator: Dr. Jamal Watson, Professor Trinity Washington University, Executive Editor of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education.                                                 

    Panelists:

    Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Distinguished Professor, Vanderbilt University

    Dr. Christina Greer, Associate Professor, Fordham University,

    Dr. Annette Gordon Reed, Professor, Harvard University  

    Natasha S. Alford, SVP, The Grio.

    The 2025 National Action Network (NAN) Convention continues to be a clarion call for justice, strategy, and truth-telling. In a climate where DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) is being vilified, this year’s panels didn’t hold back. Amid attacks on civil rights, public education, and academic freedom, one of the most critical conversations came from a powerful panel of scholars and journalists who delivered an unflinching perspective on the state of DEI in higher education and beyond.

    As states roll back DEI programs and silence academic voices, these experts stood firm and affirmed that this is not simply a political moment—it’s a moral crisis.

    The War on DEI: A Strategic, Anti-Black Attack Pam McElvanePam McElvane

    Panelists opened with a clear message: what’s happening now is not new—it’s a rebranding of old tactics. As one professor framed it, “We are the canaries in the coal mine.” The dismantling of DEI isn’t isolated, it’s a warning of broader regression.

    They urged us to stop abbreviating “DEI.” Say the words: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. The administration’s weaponization of the acronym has become a strategic assault to reassert white supremacy, particularly that of white male dominance. What we are witnessing, they said, is anti-Black racism cloaked in policy and politics.

    This is not a slip or misunderstanding—it is a calculated dismantling of progress.

    The Media and the Misuse of “Woke”

    Journalist Natasha Alford shared how mainstream media has failed to accurately report the DEI backlash. “They took our word—woke—and twisted it into something divisive and dangerous,” she said. The original term was meant to empower and enlighten people of color, yet now it’s used as a slur to silence those demanding equity.

    She called out the need for media literacy among our youth, who are often misled or confused about what’s true. “We must leverage today’s information cycles to educate, not manipulate,” Alford said. Following Black media outlets that tell the truth—like The Grio, Roland Martin Unfiltered, and others—is critical to staying grounded in reality.

    DEI is About Competition—and They Don’t Want That

    Dr. Michael Eric Dyson laid the issue bare: Diversity forces competition, and some in power are unwilling to compete. “When America wants to segregate again, it’s because it longs for a time when it didn’t have to compete with us,” he declared.

    He challenged not only the far right but also white liberals who remain silent, excusing their inaction. “Diversity is what makes America what it is. Equity means recognizing that not everyone starts in the same place. Inclusion means everyone belongs,” he said. And we must beware of the temptation to accept compromises or “payoffs” from those who ultimately seek to suppress our progress.

    Collateral Damage: The Loss of Intellectual and Scientific Power

    Beyond social issues, this anti-DEI movement threatens the entire intellectual infrastructure of the nation. The cancellation of Pell Grants and threats to federal funding for universities that support DEI policies don’t just impact Black communities—they hurt poor and working-class white students too.

    Researchers—some of the greatest minds of our time—are losing funding, careers, and platforms. “We’re watching the dismantling of the very fabric that holds America’s innovation and academic leadership together,” one professor warned.

    What Do We Do Now? Marching Orders for the Movement

    The panel didn’t just offer critique—they offered marching orders:

    • Invest in Black institutions, including churches and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), that are doing the work.
    • Raise your voice. Universities must return to being incubators for critical thought and independent minds.
    • Educate our children at home. If public schools are being silenced, churches and families must step in.
    • Support leaders who support us—vote with intention and integrity.
    • Read—daily. Even just 15 minutes of truth can change your perspective and fuel your power.

    They reminded us that history holds the answers: “We’ve already come through what we’ve been through,” one speaker said. We were once outlawed from reading, yet we learned to read in secret and built institutions that shaped this country. We must now read, remember, and reclaim our narrative.

    A Final Word: This Is the Time to Fight

    “Welcome, white America, to the Black experience,” one professor said, poignantly summing up this moment. As this administration strips away rights, rewrites history, and silences voices, it’s more important than ever to stand on truth.

    This isn’t the end—it’s the beginning of a new resistance. And we must fight not just to be seen or heard—but to lead.

    Pam McElvane is the CEO & Publisher of Diversity MBA Media.

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  • Punishing Parents for Chronic Absenteeism – The 74

    Punishing Parents for Chronic Absenteeism – The 74


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    School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

    As educators nationwide grapple with stubbornly high levels of student absences since the pandemic drove schools into disarray five years ago, Oklahoma prosecutor Erik Johnson says he has the solution. 

    Throw parents in jail.

    This week, I offer a look at chronic absenteeism’s persistence long after COVID shuttered classrooms, plunged families into poverty and led to the deaths of more than 1 million Americans. Lawmakers nationwide have proposed dozens of bills this year designed to curtail student absences — with radically different approaches.

    While a proposal in Hawaii would reward kids’ good attendance with ice cream, new laws in Indiana, West Virginia and Iowa impose fines and jail time for parents who can’t compel their children to attend class regularly. In Oklahoma, where Johnson has ushered in a new era of truancy crackdowns, state lawmakers say parents — not principals and teachers — should be held accountable for students’ repeat absences.

    “We prosecute everything from murders to rape to financial crimes, but in my view, the ones that cause the most societal harm is when people do harm to children, either child neglect, child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, domestic violence in homes, and then you can add truancy to the list,” Johnson told me this week. 

    “It’s not as bad, in my opinion, as beating a child, but it’s on the spectrum because you’re not putting that child in a position to be successful,” continued Johnson, who has dubbed 2025 the “Year of the Child.”

    In the news

    Books are not a crime — yet: Under proposed Texas legislation, teachers could soon face jail sentences for teaching classic literary works with sexual content, including The Catcher in the Rye and (unironically?) Brave New World. | Mother Jones

    Mass layoffs at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week could have devastating consequences for the health and well-being of low-income children. | The Associated Press

    Ten days or else: The Education Department demanded Thursday that states certify in writing within the next 10 days that K-12 schools are complying with its interpretation of civil rights laws, namely eliminating any diversity, equity and inclusion programs, or else risk losing their federal funding. | The New York Times

    A Texas teen was kneed in the face by a school cop: Now, with steep cuts to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, her case is one of thousands that have been left to languish. | The 74

    Students’ right to privacy versus parents’ right to know: The Trump administration has opened an investigation into a California law designed to protect transgender students from being outed to their parents, alleging violations of the federal student privacy law. | The New York Times

    • A similar investigation has been opened against officials in Maine, where the feds claim district policies to protect students’ privacy come at the expense of parents’ right to information. | Maine Morning Star
    • “Parents are the most natural protectors of their children,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement after a similar federal investigation was launched against Virginia educators. “Yet many states and school districts have enacted policies that imply students need protection from their parents.” | Virginia Mercury
    • A little context: In a recent survey, more than 92% of parents said they were supportive of their child’s transgender identity. | Human Rights Campaign
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    Get the most critical news and information about students’ rights, safety and well-being delivered straight to your inbox.

    The Student Press Law Center joined a coalition of free speech and journalism organizations in denouncing the recent ICE detention of Tufts University international student Rumeysa Ozturk over opinions she expressed in an op-ed in the student newspaper. 

    • “Such a basis for her detention would represent a blatant disregard for the principles of free speech and free press within the First Amendment,” the groups wrote in their letter. | Student Press Law Center
    • The Turkish doctoral candidate is one of several students who’ve been rounded up by immigration officials in recent weeks based on pro-Palestinian comments. | The New York Times

    Florida lawmakers have a plan to fill the jobs of undocumented workers who are deported: Put kids on the overnight shift. | The Guardian

    Minority report: Following bipartisan opposition, Georgia lawmakers have given up on efforts to create a statewide student-tracking database designed to identify youth who could commit future acts of violence. | WABE

    A majority of school district programs focused on protecting student data are led by administrators with little training in privacy issues, a new report finds. | StateScoop

    Washington students’ sensitive data was exposed. The culprit? A student surveillance tool. | The Seattle Times

    ICYMI @The74

    Emotional Support

    Annie, who lives with The 74 social media guru Christian Skotte, is the cutest regular at Brooklyn’s Prospect Park. You won’t convince me otherwise. 


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  • Researchers sue NIH over mass cuts to DEI grants

    Researchers sue NIH over mass cuts to DEI grants

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    Dive Brief:

    • Researchers, unions and others sued the National Institutes of Health on Wednesday over the agency’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion-related research activity that has resulted in lost grant funding and career opportunities. 
    • Plaintiffs, including dozens of academic scientists, alleged that the agency’s leaders, starting in February, “upended NIH’s enviable track record of rigor and excellence, launching a reckless and illegal purge to stamp out NIH-funded research that addresses topics and populations that they disfavor.”
    • They are asking a federal court to block NIH from enforcing its anti-DEI directives both in the short term and permanently and to restore grants to researchers that the agency has cut under the Trump administration. 

    Dive Insight:

    The complaint counts at least 678 research projects that have been terminated by NIH, some of them potentially by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency rather than NIH staff. 

    The recently cut grants amount to over $2.4 billion, the lawsuit noted. Of that, $1.3 billion was already spent on projects “stopped midstream that is now wasted,” and $1.1 billion has been revoked.

    Plaintiffs argue that grant terminations “cut across diverse topics that NIH is statutorily required to research,” many of which involve life-threatening diseases. Specifically, they argue that NIH’s actions violate the Administrative Procedures Act and constitutional limits on executive branch authority, and are unconstitutionally vague. 

    In the lawsuit, filed in U.S. district court in Massachusetts, plaintiffs detailed how their lives, careers and potentially life-saving research have been thrown into turmoil by the NIH’s attack on DEI under President Donald Trump.

    Among them is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of New Mexico’s medical school who studies alcohol’s impact on Alzheimer’s risk. The researcher, the first in her family to graduate college, sought a grant created to help promising researchers from underrepresented backgrounds transition to tenure-track faculty positions. 

    According to the lawsuit, the researcher “satisfies the eligibility criteria for the program and invested months into assembling her application,” but NIH refused to consider it “solely because the program is designed to help diversify the profession.”

    Another plaintiff, a Ph.D. candidate at a private California university, had received a high score on a research funding application for a dissertation proposal that would have studied suicide prevention among LGBTQ+ youth experiencing homelessness. 

    But the candidate learned that new restrictions on LGBTQ-related research meant the NIH would not likely fund the project. The turn of events will harm the researcher’s “ability to progress through their PhD program,” the complaint said. 

    Others include a University of Michigan social work professor whose research focuses on sexual violence in minority communities. The NIH has cut at least six grants supporting her research because the agency said it “no longer effectuates agency priorities,” according to the complaint. 

    Setting the various cuts in motion was internal NIH guidance, most of it revealed by the news media and cited in the complaint, that directed agency staff to terminate and deny DEI-related grant proposals. One memo instructed NIH officials to “completely excise all DEI activities.”

    Staff guidance included research topics for grant terminations. One document forbade three research activity topics: China, DEI and transgender issues. A later document, the complaint alleges, effectively banned research grants around vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19.

    NIH did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

    The scale of impact by both DEI cuts and other funding chaos at NIH is broad, cutting across much of the higher ed world. The United Auto Workers, one of the plaintiffs, counts tens of thousands of members who depend on NIH grants for their work and training, according to the lawsuit. It also noted 18,000 full-time graduate students who received their primary federal funding support through NIH in 2022.

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  • Ohio and Kentucky Ban DEI, Reduce Tenure Protections

    Ohio and Kentucky Ban DEI, Reduce Tenure Protections

    Republican-controlled legislatures in two bordering states, Ohio and Kentucky, have now passed laws requiring post-tenure review policies at public universities and banning diversity, equity and inclusion offices, along with other DEI activities.

    Many faculty and some Democratic leaders say the new laws threaten academic freedom and undermine tenure. In Ohio, lawmakers passed the sweeping higher education legislation, which has been in the works for a few years, over protests from faculty and students. The Ohio Student Association, for instance, said the bill would kill higher education in the state. Meanwhile, in Kentucky, Republican lawmakers rushed legislation through the process in order to successfully override their Democratic governor’s veto and put their higher education changes into law.

    Ohio and Kentucky join Arkansas, Utah and Wyoming this year as states where Republicans have passed laws targeting DEI and/or promoting alternative “intellectual diversity.” Even if the Trump administration’s ongoing nationwide attacks on DEI founder, these laws lock in restrictions on DEI in these states, preventing institutions from reversing course on diversity program rollbacks.

    Much of the new laws in Ohio and Kentucky echo the DEI bans that the other states have enacted, but Ohio’s legislation goes further than Kentucky’s, allowing immediate “for cause post-tenure reviews,” banning strikes for a large group of faculty and much more.

    Ohio governor Mike DeWine, a Republican, signed into law Friday a version of higher education legislation that’s been debated for the last two years but had failed to pass despite Republican majorities in the capitol. Senate Bill 1, the evolution of the failed legislation, combined numerous postsecondary changes that GOP legislators have sought to enact in other states.

    Among many other things, the new law bans full-time faculty from striking. It prohibits DEI offices, DEI in job descriptions and DEI in scholarships, without defining what DEI is. It requires institutions to “demonstrate intellectual diversity” in a range of areas, including course approval, general education requirements, common reading programs and faculty annual reviews. It also requires four-year institutions to publicly post online the syllabi for undergraduate courses, including the names of the instructors and “any required or recommended readings.” Community colleges must post more general syllabi.

    SB 1 also mandates a version of institutional neutrality, requiring colleges and universities to declare they “will not endorse or oppose, as an institution, any controversial belief or policy, except on matters that directly impact the institution’s funding or mission of discovery, improvement, and dissemination of knowledge.” The “controversial” beliefs and policies that institutions are required to stay silent on include any that are “the subject of political controversy, including issues such as climate policies, electoral politics, foreign policy, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, immigration policy, marriage, or abortion.” (Ohio colleges and universities do retain the right to endorse Congress when it goes to war.)

    The law further requires all institutions to establish post-tenure review policies—which could lead to firing tenured faculty. The legislation bans unions from using their collective bargaining rights to negotiate over these policies. And SB 1 allows certain administrators to launch “an immediate and for cause post-tenure review at any time for a faculty member who has a documented and sustained record of significant underperformance” outside their regular annual performance evaluations.

    “This bill eliminates tenure,” said Sara Kilpatrick, executive director of the Ohio Conference of the American Association of University Professors. “If certain administrators can call for post-tenure review at any time and fire a faculty member without due process, that is not real tenure, that is tenure in name only.”

    Pointing to a provision for an appeals process, Republican state senator Jerry Cirino, who filed SB 1, said, “They’re lying about that” and “once again, the AAUP is misrepresenting the facts.”

    He added that the bill is “very pro–higher education.”

    “I’m not going to fall for these false narratives that the left is trying to put out there mischaracterizing this bill,” Cirino said.

    The Ohio governor’s office didn’t respond to Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Monday about why DeWine signed this bill into law.

    In Kentucky, the Democratic governor didn’t go along with the legislature, vetoing an anti-DEI bill. But Republicans overrode Gov. Andy Beshear.

    Bucking Beshear

    Kentucky’s House Bill 4 bans what that legislation defines as DEI offices, employees and training in public colleges and universities, as well as the use of affirmative action in hiring and in deciding scholarships and vendor selection. It also affects curricula by barring institutions from requiring courses whose “primary purpose is to indoctrinate participants with a discriminatory concept.”

    The new law generally defines a “discriminatory concept” as one that “justifies or promotes differential treatment or benefits” for people based on “religion, race, sex, color or national origin.” It broadly characterizes DEI as promoting a discriminatory concept. And it defines “indoctrinate” as imbuing or attempting to “imbue another individual with an opinion, point of view or principle without consideration of any alternative.”

    Additionally, under the new law, the Council on Postsecondary Education, which oversees Kentucky’s public colleges and universities, can’t approve new degrees or certificates that require courses or trainings primarily intended to “indoctrinate” with discriminatory concepts. And it encourages the council to eliminate current academic programs that contain such requirements.

    Beshear vetoed House Bill 4 on March 19 and defended diversity programs, adding that the legislation attempts to “control how universities and colleges meet the needs of their students and prepare them for their future.”

    “Acting like racism and discrimination no longer exist or that hundreds of years of inequality have been somehow overcome and there is a level playing field is disingenuous,” Beshear added. “History may look at this time and this bill as part of the anti–civil rights or pro-discrimination movement. Kentucky should not be a part of that movement.”

    On Thursday, the Kentucky House voted 79 to 19 to override this veto, and the Senate voted 32 to 6.

    Beshear also vetoed another bill, House Bill 424, which required institutions to evaluate president and faculty “productivity” at least once every four years using a board-approved process. Presidents or faculty who fail performance and productivity metrics could lose their jobs, under the bill. Beshear wrote in his veto message that the legislation “threatens academic freedom.”

    “In a time of increased federal encroachment into the public education, this bill will limit employment protections of our postsecondary institution teachers” and the state’s “ability to hire the best people,” he wrote. Lawmakers overrode him with an 80-to-20 House vote and a 29-to-9 Senate vote.

    Amy Reid, Freedom to Learn senior manager at PEN America, a free speech and academic freedom advocacy group, said in an email that the new Ohio and Kentucky laws “are not only significant blows to public higher education, but also reflect a galling disregard for the voters, educators and students in these states.”

    “Ohioans were massively organized in their opposition to SB 1, with hundreds of citizens coming to the capital to testify against the bill,” Reid said. “The legislature ignored them and so did Governor DeWine.” She said there was also “strong opposition across Kentucky” to the new laws there.

    But Tom Young, chairman of the Ohio House Workforce and Higher Education Committee, said he had heard support for the legislation from students and faculty who were concerned about speaking up. He said DEI had become “a tool for dividing people,” and most opposition to SB 1 that he heard regarded its anti-strike and post-tenure review provisions.

    “I don’t believe that any of these professors are concerned about the classroom,” Young said of faculty upset about the new law.

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  • University of Michigan scraps multimillion dollar DEI investment

    University of Michigan scraps multimillion dollar DEI investment

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       Dive Brief:

    • The University of Michigan has scrapped its multimillion dollar university-wide strategic plan to promote diversity, equity and inclusion amid increasing pressure from the Trump administration on the sector. 
    • With the move, the public flagship shuttered two equity-focused offices — its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Office for Health Equity and Inclusion — and ended all DEI programming and spending, according to the Thursday announcement. 
    • The student services provided by the DEI office will be housed under different unnamed departments. And employees who led DEI efforts will “refocus their full effort on their core responsibilities,” university leadership said. They did not say if the restructuring would result in layoffs.

    Dive Insight:

    In Thursday’s announcement, President Santa Ono and other university leaders cited President Donald Trump’s flurry of executive orders attacking DEI efforts and the U.S. Department of Education’s resulting Dear Colleague letter.

    Many universities across the country have already caved under the Trump administration’s pressure. But the University of Michigan’s compliance represents a significant victory for the White House.

    In fall 2023, the public flagship launched its DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan, a five-year blueprint even longer in the making.

    “The university’s DEI efforts are a perpetual work in progress, and we are committed to this ongoing journey and one where we never reach our destination,” the plan’s webpage said. It describes the plan as a “campuswide effort engaging all levels of the university”

    In total, the university spent some $250 million dollars on diversity efforts, according to Regent Jordan Acker.

    But Acker and other critics have argued that the investment did not result in the desired outcome. 

    “The population of minority students at UM has grown little — and much of the resources we’ve devoted to these efforts has gone into administrative overhead, not outreach to students,” he said in a Thursday statement on social media.

    Before the launch of the university’s first DEI strategic plan, it faced a years-long struggle boosting Black enrollment, to the dissatisfaction of students and administration alike.

    In 2023, 14.1% of Michigan residents were Black, according to federal data. That fall, just 4.6% of the university’s students were Black.

    Acker described the elimination of the university’s DEI efforts as a means of focusing resources on programs of “real impact,” such as the university’s Go Blue Guarantee, which offers free and reduced tuition to qualifying Michigan residents.

    In its announcement this week, the university spotlighted Go Blue and its Wolverine Pathways program — which works with K-12 students in under-resourced communities — when touting its student successes.

    Among undergraduates, first-generation students have increased 46% and Pell Grant recipients by about 32% since 2016, university leaders said Thursday, attributing the growth to those two programs.

    The University of Michigan also said Thursday it will expand another student success program designed for undergraduates who are former foster care youths or are “navigating their educational journey without the support of their parents or guardians.”

    Because those initiatives do not explicitly mention diversity or race, they are set to survive the university’s purge of programs.

    Not all will be so lucky.

    Among its many DEI programs, the University of Michigan oversees the National Center for Institutional Diversity, the Diversity Scholars Network, and a public safety task force dedicated to addressing structural racism in policing.

    The university’s general counsel will be conducting an “expedited review” of all institutional policies, programs and practices to ensure compliance with the Trump administrations’ orders, according to Thursday’s announcement.

    Additionally, all departments are expected to ensure their webpages are in compliance and “reflect the status of current programmatic directions” at the university.

    “These decisions have not been made lightly,” Ono said Thursday. “We recognize the changes are significant and will be challenging for many of us, especially those whose lives and careers have been enriched by and dedicated to programs that are now pivoting.”

    Additionally, the university’s Alumni Association this month ended LEAD Scholars, a 16-year-old merit scholarship for admitted students who exemplify “leadership, excellence, achievement, and diversity.” The group cited the same federal pressures as university leaders.

    In an email Thursday, the head of the university’s faculty senate called the move to dismantle DEI infrastructure an “assault on the democratic values of public education and attacks on marginalized students, staff, and faculty.”

    Senate Chair Rebekah Modrak lambasted the Trump Administration as using “the power of the government to engineer a sweeping culture change towards white supremacy.”

    “Unfortunately, University of Michigan leaders seem determined to comply and to collaborate in our own destruction,” she said. “There are legal recourses that the university and university associations can and must take.”

    The faculty senate held a closed emergency meeting Friday for university employees and students to discuss next steps.

    This isn’t the first move against DEI the university has taken.

    In December, the University of Michigan eliminated the use of diversity statements from the hiring, promotion or tenure processes. A faculty working group recommended the change, but it also advised the university to ask instructors to incorporate information about their DEI efforts into their teaching, research and service statements.

    Michigan’s administration did not enact the second recommendation at the time, and such actions are now banned following Thursday’s announcement.

    Sarah Hubbard, a regent on the University of Michigan’s board and a consistent opponent of DEI efforts, praised the cancellations.

    “Ending DEI programs will also allow us to better expand diversity of thought and free speech on our campus. The end of litmus test hiring and curtailment of speech stops now,” Hubbard said in a Thursday social media post.   

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  • No Safe State: Former DEI Employee Says to Look for the Red Flags

    No Safe State: Former DEI Employee Says to Look for the Red Flags

    Dr. Nicole DelMastro-Jeffery, former executive director for the DEI and Belonging office and Title IX coordinator at Richland Community College.On January 21, one day after his inauguration, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order he called “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” instructing federal agencies to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices and programs.

    The very next day, Dr. Nicole DelMastro-Jeffery, executive director for the DEI and Belonging office and Title IX coordinator at Richland Community College in Decatur, Illinois, was let go from her non-federal position.

    In a sense, DelMastro-Jeffery’s story is familiar. State legislatures across the country have introduced and passed laws curbing DEI at educational institutions, even before Trump issued his order. Since then, a growing number of DEI offices have either shuttered or reorganized, and DEI-focused employees have been dismissed or had their roles changed.

    But Illinois has no anti-DEI laws established, despite some competing bills introduced on the House and Senate floor. On February 7, State Sen. Andrew S. Chesney introduced SB2288, calling for the abolishment of DEI programs in departments of the state government. Conversely, on January 29, State Rep. Sonya M. Harper filed HR0077, a bill to affirm DEI programs in local, state, federal, educational and other institutions.

    According to DelMastro-Jeffery, in early 2024 when the Biden-Harris administration issued a new Dear Colleague letter which expanded Title IX for the further protection of women and transgender individuals, Richland moved toward implementing those changes. However, by December 2024, she said that Richland “quickly rolled back to the 2020 legislation.”

    “Ultimately,” she said, “Going back to 2020 legislative measures decreased protections, not only for transgender community members but women as well.”

    For DelMastro-Jeffery, the institutional waffling between Title IX regulations was a red flag, one that should be heeded by other DEI professionals and institutions working to preserve their DEI programs.

    “We have rarely considered the legal ramifications of separate laws and how their implementation and adjustments may in fact serve as awareness flags of next moves, like that of chess match players,” she said. “It is my belief that this federal injunction or swift rollback of expanded 2024 Title IX protections should have served as an immediate wakeup call to our DEI community.”

    DelMastro-Jeffery arrived at Richland fresh off an internship with the Biden-Harris administration. She said she was thrilled at the chance to apply all she had learned to a rural college environment. Her dismissal, she said, “felt like a triple backlash to both my former public service work, status as a woman of color in higher education, and DEI executive leader.”

    Paulette Granberry Russell, CEO and president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE), said the attacks on DEI, including Trump’s order, have continued to demonize it, stripping all meaning from the acronym. She intentionally uses the words “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” instead of DEI.

    Paulette Granberry Russell, CEO and president of NADOHE.Paulette Granberry Russell, CEO and president of NADOHE.Granberry Russell said she is “disappointed by the failure of institutions that over-complied to the threats to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, rather than taking a stand to say these efforts are not divisive.”

    The misinformation disseminated through anti-DEI laws and orders have produced significant misunderstanding in the public sphere, “that somehow efforts associated with advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion is unlawful. That is not the case,” said Granberry Russell.

    “We’re seeing what I often refer to as a ‘chilling effect,’ where institutions are preemptively scaling back diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts due to political pressure or fear of litigation,” said Granberry Russell.

    NADOHE is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit filed by Democracy Forward, a national legal organization of litigators, policy makers, regulators and public educators working to advance democracy. The suit was filed against the Trump Administration in early February calling Trump’s attack on DEI unconstitutional.

    Granberry Russell acknowledged that, since the legislation and executive order, many DEI officers and employees have lost their roles. But she does not know how many, as there is no national database tracking these changes.

    DelMastro-Jeffery said “this experience has illuminated, for me, the intersection between gender, leadership values, and the importance of pressing on.”

    She continued, “Amid the growing dismissal of DEI programming, now diluted to words on a website, we would be negligent to forget the value of diversity and how the world, including systems of education, thrives on it.”

    Richland leadership did not respond to requests for comment. Their website still hosts a page for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging and Accessibility, which affirms these as a “core institutional value.”

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