(LATEST UPDATE: Feb. 19) Over $1 billion worth of contracts with education nonprofits have gone up in flames over the past 10 days, and public institutions may soon need to close DEI-related programming, according to another wave of executive orders from President Donald Trump.
This is a running article covering Trump’s impact on higher education during his second term in office and will be updated weekly.
More from UB: How reduced federal spending can hurt state support for higher ed
DEI programming ordered to cease at all public institutions
All K12 and postsecondary public institutions have been ordered to remove all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs within 14 days, according to a Feb. 14 “Dear Colleague” letter sent by the civil rights office of the Department of Education.
Acting Assistant Secretary Craig Trainor emphasized that discrimination based on race, color, or national origin remains illegal, referencing the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which banned racial preferences in college admissions. Trainor stated that this ruling applies broadly, and any differential treatment based on race violates the law.
The letter serves as a notice of the Department’s interpretation of federal law regarding DEI in education, with further legal guidance to follow. Institutions must comply with civil rights laws or risk losing federal funding.
Schools implementing DEI initiatives, such as increasing enrollment of students of color or hiring diverse staff, may face civil rights investigations. Read more.
DOGE, DOE cut nearly $2 billion in funding
On Feb. 10, the Department of Government Efficiency, a federal agency run by billionaire Elon Musk to shrink the federal government, canceled 89 contracts with the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) worth up to $881 million.
The IES is one of the country’s largest funders of education research. One of the affected agencies, the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), funds research to improve higher education and provides public data on postsecondary institutions across the nation. The College Scorecard, which allows people to search for and compare information about colleges, will not be affected, Pro Publica reports.
Much of the canceled funding had already been allocated and implemented into studies. “If they’re doing this to save government money, they are wasting millions today,” one anonymous employee told NPR. “All the money we have spent working on these products, down the drain.”
Three days later, the Department of Education announced it had canceled 10 contracts with Regional Education Laboratories worth $336 million. Administered by the IES, the country’s 10 Regional Education Laboratories partner with stakeholders to provide “high-quality applied research” and “training, coaching, and technical support to educators and policymakers,” according to the IES website.
“[R]eview of the contracts uncovered wasteful and ideologically driven spending not in the interest of students and taxpayers,” read the press release.
The following week, the Department of Education announced that schools and nonprofits would lose $600 million in grants for training teachers in what it considers “divisive ideologies,” according to a press release.
The grants funded training materials that covered DEI, social justice, anti-racism, white privilege and white supremacy, calling those topics “inappropriate and unnecessary.”
“Many of these grants included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race,” the agency said.
The department announced the cuts just three days after it gave schools less than two weeks to eliminate all DEI-related instruction, hiring initiatives and other programs.
Sacred Heart University in Connecticut is due to lose a $3.38 million grant, which went toward recruiting and strengthening a diverse workforce of teachers in special education and STEM subjects, The 74 reports. The university was one of 20 recipients to receive the grant. Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for the secretary of education, serves on Sacred Heart’s Board of Trustees.
Confusion surges over fate of the Department of Education
Media reports indicated that President Donald Trump is planning an executive order to significantly reduce “all functions of the [Department of Education] that aren’t written explicitly into statute.” Read more.
Transgender athletes: You cannot compete
The NCAA formally barred transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports following Trump’s executive order that threatens to withhold federal funding from institutions that allow athletes assigned as male at birth to play in women’s events. However, the organization will allow them to practice with women’s teams.
“This national standard brings much needed clarity as we modernize college sports for today’s student-athletes,” NCAA President Charlie Baker said in a statement. Read more.
The Department of Education has since opened investigations at the University of Pennsylvania and San Jose State University to probe the participation of a transgender woman on a women’s athletic team. Read more.
Title IX reverts to 2020 regulations
The U.S. Department of Education announced that institutions must comply with Title IX regulations implemented in 2020 during Trump’s first term in office after it deemed the previous administration’s update an unlawful abuse of regulatory power. Undergirding the “Dear Colleague” letter is a spate of executive orders issued by Trump that reinstate biological sex as the only classification relevant in higher education.
The order enforces protection from harassment and discrimination based solely on biological sex and reestablishes free speech and due process for students during Title IX sexual misconduct proceedings. Read more.
To freeze, or not to freeze, federal grants
On Monday of President Trump’s second week, the White House budget office ordered a spending freeze on federal grant programs, potentially pausing hundreds of billions of dollars in aid for nonprofits across the United States. But following a federal ruling that temporarily blocked the order, the Office of Management and Budget released a two-sentence memo rescinding the order.
Democrat advocacy groups celebrated the reversal. But White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the Trump administration still plans to conduct a review of spending to “end the egregious waste of federal funding,” NPR reports. The funding that’s most likely in the crosshairs are activities related to “DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal,” per the budget office’s original memorandum.
Executive order aims to quash anti-Semitism
President Trump released another executive order in his second week of office to address anti-Semitism in higher education, directing federal agencies to use all legal means to combat campus anti-Semitism and review related civil rights complaints.
Non-U.S. citizens who participated in pro-Palestinian protests following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel can potentially be deported, per a White House fact sheet. “To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” it read.
Trump targets DEI, LGBTQ+ policies, immigration and more in first week in office
President Trump did not waste any time after his inauguration reshaping U.S. policy, signing more executive orders on his first day in office than any other. Higher education was not spared from the change; many policies championed by Republicans during Joe Biden’s tenure are now gearing into full swing.
Dismantling Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
An executive order now demands colleges and universities end all mandates, policies and programs that fall under the guise of a DEI initiative. The order claims these programs violate the country’s civil rights laws.
“[I]n case after tragic case, the American people have witnessed first-hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing,” it read.
The order does not define what constitutes a DEI-related initiative or specify the consequences an institution may receive if found guilty. However, it permits federal agencies to open investigations into any college or university with a track recording of promoting such initiatives and exposes them to private lawsuits.
State funded and private institutions alike find themselves at risk. The executive order also asked the Department of Education to investigate nine schools with endowments over $1 billion (predominantly Ivy League institutions) and “deter DEI principles.”
“I would be hesitant to advise a client to just sit pat and see what happens, even if they perceive themselves as not having too much exposure,” says Jack Sharman, internal investigations and compliance attorney with Lightfoot, Franklin & White LLC.
The executive order directs the attorney general and secretary of education issue guidance for all federally funded institutions on how to better comply with the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling ending race-based admissions.
The Department of Education is also gutting all aspects of DEI per another executive order aiming to end all related mandates across the federal government. Here are several actions the department took:
- Dissolution of the Diversity & Inclusion Council and the Employee Engagement Diversity Equity Inclusion Accessibility Council within the Office for Civil Rights
- Cancellation of ongoing DEI training and service contracts totaling over $2.6 million
- Withdrawal of the department’s Equity Action Plan
- Placement of employees charged with leading DEI initiatives on paid administrative leave
- Removing over 200 web pages from its website housing DEI resources
LGBTQ+ students no longer offered protection from discrimination
A pair of executive orders have furthered the GOP’s efforts to reclaim the issue of gender identity and reinstate biological sex as the only classification relevant in higher education, which affects who is protected from laws prohibiting discrimination based on sex.
The first order strictly enforces U.S. policy to only regard any person by their sex assigned at birth, male or female. As a result, directives by the Biden administration that extended Title IX protections to those experiencing discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender identity have been rescinded.
“Invalidating the true and biological category of ‘woman’ improperly transforms laws and policies designed to protect sex-based opportunities into laws and policies that undermine them, replacing longstanding, cherished legal rights and values with an identity-based, inchoate social concept,” one order read.
Underscoring this order is the recent move by a Kentucky district judge to vacate Biden’s more comprehensive Title IX update.
Support for HSIs and Tribal Colleges nixed
The same order that rescinded Title IX protections for gender identity or sexual orientation also revoked previous executive initiatives focused on “Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence, and Economic Opportunity” for Hispanics, Native Americans, Black Americans, tribal colleges and universities, and Hispanic-Serving Institutions.
As a result, federal committees focused on improving the impact of HSIs and advancing their access to STEM field and teaching positions will be disbanded.
Immigration raids on campus now imminent
Trump’s tough stance on immigration is likely to disrupt college campuses as well. A directive issued by the Department of Homeland Security has rescinded Biden-era mandates that prevented law enforcement from conducting raids on “sensitive areas” such as college campuses, K12 schools and churches.
“The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense,” according to a Homeland Security spokesperson.
Previous coverage of Trump and higher education before inauguration
- These 3 big campus movements will falter under new administration (published Jan. 9, 2025): A trio of left-leaning campaigns in higher ed have lost momentum as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to re-enter the White House.
- How will Trump impact higher ed? Report urges focus on civic engagement (published Jan. 6, 2025): With Donald Trump returning to the White House, higher ed leaders are being encouraged to re-energize programs aimed at keeping students engaged in the Democratic process and civic affairs.
- How a looming Trump presidency is already affecting college life (published Dec. 6, 2024): President-elect Donald Trump’s aggressive stance on immigration has led some institutions and related organizations to begin issuing guidance to students ahead of his inauguration.
