Clinging to Control

Mario Pile arrived early at his new office at the University of Idaho on the first day of the spring semester. But it wasn’t out of excitement.

Pile didn’t want anyone to see him cry as he moved boxes of personal items from the now shuttered Black and African American Cultural Center on campus, where he served as director for three years. (He has been reassigned and moved into the Department of Student Involvement.)

Idaho’s four public universities are among more than 80 colleges tracked by The Chronicle that altered or dissolved diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in 2023 and 2024 even though the law didn’t require it. The changes ranged from name alterations of diversity offices to sweeping bans of cultural centers and programs supporting minority students. (Most campuses in The Chronicle’s tracker were compelled to end diversity-related activities under state law.)

In The Chronicle’s tracker, out of the 86 campuses that made changes without anti-DEI laws, 74 were in states where a bill restricting diversity efforts had been introduced but not approved. Twelve colleges made changes in states where no DEI-related bill had been introduced.

The number of public and private colleges acting pre-emptively to end diversity-related programs is increasing under President Trump, who quickly signed an executive order directing federal agencies to investigate “discriminatory DEI practitioners,” including colleges. (A coalition including two higher-ed groups sued this month, arguing that Trump overstepped his authority.)

Missouri State University closed its Office of Inclusive Engagement and ended all DEI programs, directly citing “changes nationwide and anticipated actions regarding DEI at the state level.” The University of Pennsylvania took down or scrubbed language from several DEI webpages; officials said they needed to ensure compliance with the university’s nondiscrimination policies and federal law.

Neither Missouri nor Pennsylvania have state laws restricting diversity efforts.

Colleges’ anticipatory actions are sparking concern among many academics, students, and education advocates. They believe institutions are kowtowing to conservative threats, rashly dismantling programs that have taken years to build, and harming minority students and staff. Republican politicians and others say DEI efforts force people to endorse progressive ideology and can even be discriminatory.

Given the Trump administration’s rhetoric, more campus diversity programs are likely to meet pre-emptive ends in the coming weeks. But long before Trump took office, that movement had already begun.

Over the past two years, many college presidents and governing boards acted to ban DEI offices because they assumed state lawmakers were about to do so anyway.

In December, the Idaho State Board of Education unanimously voted to ban “DEI ideology” — which the board described as any initiative that prioritizes race, sexual orientation, religion, or gender identity over “individual merit” — at its public colleges across the state.

Board members said their decision was informed by weeks of discussion with the colleges’ leaders, students, and local community members. The state board asked students to send in their opinion about the proposed policy. Of the 600 students who responded, nearly 80 percent opposed ending DEI, the state board said.

Idaho lawmakers had already passed diversity-related restrictions affecting colleges in 2023 and 2024.

“This is really about leading and choosing to lead,” Joshua Whitworth, executive director of the Office of the State Board of Education, told The Chronicle. “Rather than wait for someone else to define the path that is best for our students and our institutions.”

The ban forced the University of Idaho to close the Women’s Center, LGBTQ Center, Office of Multicultural Affairs, and Black and African American Cultural Center, which had been the only one of its kind in the majority-white state.

Board members’ decision to ban “DEI ideology” was the second time they made changes to race-conscious initiatives without legislative action.

“They’re turning DEI into this bogeyman that’s taking opportunity away from white students,” Pile, the former Black cultural-center director, said. “If enough people make you afraid of the bogeyman, then you think you’re being preventative.”

Standing in the doorway after clearing out his things, Pile stared at the empty center that would soon be converted into a student lounge. He wavered between grief and exhaustion. It was a space where Black students, who make up less than 2 percent of the University of Idaho’s student enrollment, could study together, plan cultural events, and seek respite from microaggressions they may have faced on campus.

“One of my favorite things is when my students started calling me uncle,” Pile said. “That means that we’ve created something more than just a community, and that’s being taken away.”

By acting before state laws, colleges have been clinging to control, said Neetu Arnold, a policy analyst at the conservative Manhattan Institute who focuses on K-12 and higher education.

State lawmakers have imposed drastic overhauls of DEI programming, while colleges could make “cosmetic” changes on their own, said Arnold. Removing phrases like “multicultural affairs,” “diversity,” and “equity” from offices and job titles could serve as a signal that the programs are eliminated.

“But if they’ve still kept the same people and if they haven’t really changed the program’s mission, then I don’t think DEI has actually stopped,” said Arnold, who thinks diversity offices and activities can cause division and limit free speech.

Meanwhile, in states where legislative pressure is less intense, semantic shifts might appease critics who’d like to see diversity programs gone. It can also send warning signs to supporters who want them to stay.

Last fall, Marquita Chamblee, former chief diversity officer at Wayne State University, saw that her former job title and office had been renamed from the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to the Office of Inclusive Excellence. Michigan’s Legislature, which was controlled by Democrats from 2022 to 2024 and now is split between the two parties, has not proposed abolishing diversity offices.

Chamblee said she believes the new language was pre-emptive, but she added that the university wasn’t necessarily retreating from DEI. “Inclusive excellence” is a well-known model for promoting diversity on campus.

Chamblee’s successor, Donyale R. Padgett, the interim vice provost of inclusive excellence, declined The Chronicle’s request for an interview for this story. A Wayne State spokesperson told The Chronicle that the new name reflects the university’s “commitment to extending its proud history as a welcoming and accessible environment focused on student success.”

Still, Chamblee said, “I think people who are watching are wondering about that.”

“People are going to be on notice now to watch to see what happens to some of the programming, some of the positions, to a variety of things,” she said. “I think people will be watching now, in ways that they perhaps were not watching before.”

Chamblee, the university’s first chief diversity officer, retired from Wayne State in 2023, and since then she’s been closely watching the dismantling of DEI across higher ed and waiting to see what might happen in her home state of Michigan. When word got out that the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor was expected to make cuts to its diversity, equity, and inclusion programming, it set off alarm bells around the state, she said.

In November, the University of Michigan’s Faculty Senate chair warned her colleagues that the Board of Regents was expected to meet in December to discuss rolling back diversity efforts. Michigan’s DEI operation is one of the largest in the country, making the campus susceptible to both admiration and scrutiny.

While protesters gathered outside the meeting, the regents inside reassured the campus that no cuts were on the way. That same day, however, the university announced that it would no longer ask for diversity statements as a part of hiring, promotion, or tenure. The statements had been part of a concentrated push to increase faculty diversity.

For some observers, Michigan’s retrenchment stood in contrast to the university’s historical commitment to racial and socioeconomic diversity within its student body and faculty ranks.

“When the flagship of the state starts making those actions without really any pressure from the legislature, that sends a really strong and negative message to the rest of the public institutions in the state,” Chamblee said.

Last year, Michigan Technological University also found itself wrestling over the future of its DEI work. The public institution renamed its diversity office to the Office of Engagement and Belonging.

The university’s announcement — titled “New Name, Same Commitment” — said the change reflects Michigan Tech’s “continued dedication to fostering a welcoming and supportive environment for all members of the university community, while emphasizing the intentional efforts made to achieve this goal.”

Then, just last week, Michigan Tech reversed course: It shuttered the Office of Engagement and Belonging, opened a new Office of Community Engagement, and moved the diversity office’s staff to an existing student-success center.

Once closely linked to the Republican agenda, the anti-DEI movement increasingly transcended party lines last year. American workers from both political parties became more negative in their views of DEI, according to Pew Research Center.

Even colleges in the most progressive states began to act — a sign of how broader cultural debates and anxieties were trickling down to unexpected places.

Leaders of public colleges are especially attuned to the desires of local communities that support their enrollment, said Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of African American studies and public affairs at Princeton University.

“People in blue states are not necessarily thinking any differently about the challenges of an unequal and unjust society,” said Muhammad. “There’s a healthy dose of liberal NIMBYism in blue-state America that is concerned about whether their white children are not getting access to the flagship state university because some Black kid got in on affirmative action.”

In California, no DEI legislation has been proposed. Still, the University of California at Los Angeles replaced its Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion with an Office of Inclusive Excellence. California State University at Long Beach renamed its Office of Multicultural Affairs to the Office of Belonging and Inclusion.

A spokesperson for CSU-Long Beach requested that The Chronicle remove the university from a database of institutions paring back diversity efforts, saying the decision reflected an internal shift and not a rollback.

But in a university news release, the director of the renamed office acknowledged that “the name change also reflects a shift at universities and colleges across the country, where the words ‘belonging’ and ‘inclusion’ are replacing more race or culture-specific terminology.”

Representatives from both universities declined to comment further.

Now an executive order that aims to eradicate DEI from the public and private sectors could further broaden the types of colleges that make changes. President Trump called out colleges with endowments of more than $1 billion and suggested they could face civil rights compliance investigations. The colleges with the largest endowments include highly selective private universities in deeply blue states.

On top of the dozens of colleges that dismantled DEI over the past two years even though state laws didn’t require it, there were many institutions that, when complying with anti-DEI laws, dismantled far more than was necessary.

Last year, Kansas passed legislation banning colleges from requiring employees or students to submit diversity statements as part of admission, hiring, or promotion. The six public universities governed by the Kansas Board of Regents complied with the new law. But Wichita State University and the University of Kansas took it a step further.

Wichita State University folded its Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Office of Student Engagement, Advocacy, and Leadership into one unit in the Division of Student Affairs.

The University of Kansas closed its Office of Multicultural Affairs, Center for Sexuality and Gender Diversity, and Emily Taylor Center for Women and Gender Equity. The university then moved those staff members into a new Student Engagement Center with different job responsibilities and reporting lines.

Even the student government took a pre-emptive step, proposing a bill to eliminate a standalone fund for diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, ostensibly to help plug a budget deficit.

“We’re letting overcompliance kill our safe spaces,” said Monty Coash-Johnson, a junior at the University of Kansas. Coash-Johnson and other students founded the Save Our Centers movement in response to the DEI changes and closures. The group led protests against the student-government proposal, which ultimately was withdrawn.

Coash-Johnson remains worried that students themselves are shouldering the burden of preserving campus-support efforts. But he said it was a significant win for the university.

“Students care about DEI a lot. We know why it’s important,” Coash-Johnson said. “There’s going to continue to be backlash whenever people make these decisions around DEI.”