What’s New
The National Institutes of Health has announced what it’s framing as a new ultimatum for research universities: Certify that you don’t operate diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, or lose funding and access to future grants.
The policy change is the Trump administration’s latest strike against diversity efforts. Colleges maintain DEI offices and initiatives to try to create more welcoming campuses, but federal officials have argued that many such programs are discriminatory.
The Details
The NIH’s revised policy applies to new, renewing, and continuing research awards, according to the agency. Colleges that are not in compliance or fail to dismantle DEI activities will have previously disbursed funding revoked. The change, dated Monday, appears to have taken effect immediately.
Per the policy, when grant recipients accept an award, they must certify that their institution does not operate any programs that advance or promote DEI or “discriminatory equity ideology in violation of federal anti-discrimination laws.”
The NIH does not define what counts as diversity, equity, and inclusion, leaving colleges to try to interpret whether their programs fall under the policy’s scope.
Jonathan Fansmith, senior vice president of government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education, wrote in a statement to The Chronicle that the NIH’s new policy echoes earlier anti-DEI guidance from the Trump administration.
The Education Department in February made sweeping pronouncements about DEI efforts, declaring as illegal all “aspects of student, academic, and campus life” that operate based on race or identity; a second document issued in March softened that stance and offered a few examples of programs that would be acceptable. Many colleges have altered or eliminated offices and activities in response to Trump’s directives.
But Fansmith wrote that colleges’ efforts to promote diversity are already in compliance with anti-discrimination laws, because those statutes have not changed under Trump.
According to the NIH, grant recipients also must certify that their institutions do not engage in a “discriminatory prohibited boycott,” which is defined as “refusing to deal, cutting commercial relations, or otherwise limiting commercial relations specifically with Israeli companies or with companies doing business in or with Israel or authorized by, licensed by, or organized under the laws of Israel to do business.”
In the spring of 2024, protesters at over a hundred college campuses began encampments to call for divestment from companies with ties to Israel. Very few colleges altered their investment policies in response; no institution fully endorsed a boycott of Israel.
The Background
The Trump administration has for months leveraged NIH funding as a tool. Its federal task force on combating antisemitism has gone after colleges that allegedly failed to keep Jewish students safe amid protests of the war in Gaza.
In March, the Trump administration froze $400 million in federal funding, including $250 million in contracts and grants from the NIH, to Columbia University, citing antisemitism concerns. Columbia made policy changes to try to appease federal officials, but has yet to have its funding restored.
Harvard University became the Trump administration’s next target. The Trump administration demanded Harvard ban all DEI programming and submit to federal oversight of admissions and hiring. The university announced it would not comply with the administration’s orders and has since lost $2.2 billion in federal funding. On Monday Harvard sued the administration over the cuts.
According to an internal email circulated by several news outlets, the NIH has been instructed not to make payments to any of the seven universities whose funds have been frozen.
The anti-DEI policy is among the NIH’s efforts to curtail funding more broadly. In February, the agency announced it would limit indirect cost reimbursements to 15 percent of a grant’s value. The proposed cap, which remains tied up in court, would leave research universities with multimillion dollar shortfalls in their budgets.
What to Watch For
The NIH has also made headlines in recent months for tossing grants that have to do with race or LGBTQ issues, and that support researchers from underrepresented backgrounds.
Shaun Harper, a professor of public policy, education, and business at the University of Southern California, said that the NIH’s demand that institutions dismantle DEI efforts will do even more harm.
“Existing health inequities will be exacerbated, and new ones will emerge if researchers are required to do our work in ways that explicitly discard considerations of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, gender, disability, and other important characteristics that inescapably qualify as DEI,” Harper wrote in an email.
The National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education has similar concerns. Paulette Granberry Russell, president of NADOHE, wrote to The Chronicle that because this notice — and previous executive orders — lack a definition of DEI, it “will lead to overcompliance by recipients of NIH grants, contracts, and awards.”
“NADOHE is concerned not only with the vagueness of the provisions that are now being incorporated in the NIH Notice, but also concerned that research will no longer be conducted that may, for example, benefit communities that have been unresourced and underserved, and perpetuate needless inequities,” Granberry Russell wrote.
