With a federal deadline to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion programs expiring on Friday, dozens of higher ed advocacy groups are urging the Trump administration to rescind the “unreasonable” DEI letter that threatened investigations and loss of federal funding.
The Feb. 14 Dear Colleague Letter, referred to as the “DCL,” has “sparked widespread concern and confusion” and left college and university leaders scrambling to determine whether their DEI programs break the new rules, says a letter released by the American Council on Education and more than 60 other organizations.
“The Department’s DCL asserts that diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and initiatives on campus are broadly discriminatory,” the American Council on Education’s letter says. “However one defines DEI—and DEI is a concept that means different things to different parties—it is worth noting that the range of activities that are commonly associated with DEI are not, in and of themselves, illegal.”
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The DEI letter gave colleges, universities and K12 institutions until Feb. 28 to eliminate all diversity, equity and inclusion programs, using as a legal basis the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard that outlawed race-based admissions policies in higher ed. The letter, issued by the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, accuses educational institutions of using race, rather than merit, to select students for diversity programs and similar initiatives.
The American Council on Education’s coalition called the two-week deadline “unreasonable.” It also contends that this legal argument is too vague to apply to the breadth of higher ed DEI programs and ignores the First Amendment protections afforded to colleges and universities. The letter is also contradictory when it says it has not established new law but threatens colleges with legal penalties, the coalition asserts.
“Unfortunately, [the letter’s] reference to ‘DEI programs’ does not provide any clarity to institutions about their obligations under the law or how previously legal programs designed to support students now could be in violation of the law,” says the letter written by American Council on Education President Ted Mitchell.
The coalition hopes to work with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to revise the DEI letter’s guidance and ensure colleges and universities are complying with Title VI and federal nondiscrimination laws.
The American Federation of Teachers, its Maryland chapter and the American Sociological Association have sued the Department of Education over the DEI letter, calling its guidance “a grave attack on students, our profession and knowledge itself.”
“Federal statute already prohibits any president from telling schools and colleges what to teach. And students have the right to learn without the threat of culture wars waged by extremist politicians hanging over their heads,” American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten said in a statement.
