Education Department Takes Aim at Diversity Programs

Happy Tuesday! On this day 236 years ago, the United States Constitution officially went into effect as the law of the land. The date it ceased serving as the law of the land is, uh, a disputed matter.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• President Donald Trump told reporters Monday that planned 25 percent tariffs on goods imported from Mexico and Canada, along with increased levies on China, would take effect Tuesday with “no room” for delay. The tariffs targeting the North American allies, which were originally scheduled to begin in February, were postponed for a month after last-minute negotiations with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. Both leaders have signaled that they are prepared to respond with retaliatory tariffs. U.S. stocks dipped immediately following the announcement.
• The U.S. has suspended all military aid to Ukraine at Trump’s directive, multiple outlets reported Monday. “We are pausing and reviewing our aid to ensure that it is contributing to a solution,” a White House official told Reuters. The decision, which followed a confrontational Oval Office meeting involving Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday, does not exclude the possibility of a U.S.-Ukraine minerals deal—something Zelensky said Sunday his country is still “ready to sign” despite conceding that an agreement to end the Russia-Ukraine war is “very, very far away.” 
• Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered U.S. offensive cyber operations against Russia to be paused, according to multiple reports on Monday. The directive, which was issued late last month, was reportedly intended to bring Moscow to the negotiating table for talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. According to defense experts, the pause might simply be part of routine diplomatic maneuvering, but it may also curtail the ability of U.S. intelligence agencies to monitor and deter clandestine Russian actions, such as election interference, around the world.
• President Trump announced on Truth Social Sunday that the U.S. would pursue the creation of a “crypto strategic reserve” through the purchase of five different cryptocurrencies. Trump did not specify how much cryptocurrency the government would buy, but he said the fund would include the two most popular digital currencies—bitcoin and ether—along with the relatively unknown XRP, solana, and cardona currencies. After an initial surge, the values of the various currencies eased on Monday amid uncertainty about the plan.
• Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote an op-ed for Fox News Digital on Sunday praising the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine in what appears to be a partial reversal of his previous vaccine skepticism. Describing the ongoing measles outbreak in West Texas as a “call to action,” Kennedy promised to “work closely with the Texas health authorities to provide comprehensive support,” including vaccines and therapeutic medicines, to the affected communities. But he maintained that the “decision to vaccinate is a personal one” and wrote that “good nutrition” is the “best defense” against the disease. At least 158 people—the vast majority of whom are unvaccinated children and teenagers—have been infected with the measles, and one school-aged child has died.
• The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced Monday that it would reinstate dozens of fired “probationary” employees—workers who have been recently hired or promoted—after a federal judge ruled last week that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) could not direct mass firings of probationary employees in several other agencies. While the NSF was included in the original order demanding that OPM rescind the instruction until a judge examines the case more closely, U.S. District Judge William Alsup stated in an amended ruling Friday that the NSF was not included in the stay. However, the NSF said that it would be reinstating probationary employees who were veterans, disabled, or military spouses.
• Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest chip manufacturer, announced Monday that it would invest $100 billion in the U.S. over the next four years. The money reportedly will expand production capacity at the company’s CHIPS Act-subsidized manufacturing centers in Arizona, allowing TSMC to continue to relocate some of its operations from Taiwan. The announcement, which Trump touted as evidence of the success of his threatened tariffs, came amid the president’s attempts to boost American manufacturing.
• The Senate voted 51-45 along party lines on Monday to confirm Linda McMahon as education secretary. McMahon, a former World Wrestling Entertainment executive who co-chaired the Trump transition team, will now be tasked with overseeing the president’s efforts to dismantle the department she leads. “I want her to put herself out of a job,” Trump said of McMahon’s nomination last month.
• President Trump will deliver an address focused on what the White House described as “the renewal of the American dream” to a joint session of Congress tonight at 9 p.m. ET. In the speech, which comes on the heels of Trump’s contentious White House meeting with Zelensky last week, the president is expected to cover his plans for ending the Russia-Ukraine war, tech CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to overhaul the federal government, immigration policy, and the economy. 

A Campus Conundrum

As university administrators attempted to wrap up a town hall to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to eliminate diversity programs at federally funded schools last week, the packed theater erupted in applause in response to a heckler’s jeer: “Georgia Tech is selling minority students down the river!”

The Georgia Institute of Technology had called the meeting with campus leaders in response to a new Education Department directive ordering thousands of schools to gut their diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs or risk losing federal funding. And similar scenes played out on college campuses across the country, as administrators found themselves stuck between making sweeping changes to campus culture and complying with the broad directive ahead of its Saturday deadline. 

Last month, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a “Dear Colleague” letter outlining its new enforcement policies regarding DEI initiatives in both universities and K-12 schools. Though the letter itself is not legally enforceable, it established guidance to school administrators on how OCR plans to interpret existing federal law, including Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Protection Act. 

And OCR’s new interpretation is broad. Drawing on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard—which found that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions violate the 14^th Amendment—the letter argued against using race “in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.” 

If fully implemented, the sweeping directive would effectively hobble many DEI initiatives on university campuses across the country. But there are some limitations and exceptions. The Education Department recently clarified that it is not seeking to control curricula or restrict students’ First Amendment rights, nor does it plan to outlaw celebrations like Black History Month and International Holocaust Remembrance Day “so long as they do not engage in racial exclusion or discrimination.”

“The goal here is to use this guidance in a way that will aggressively push school districts and colleges to change … race conscious programming,” Frederick M. Hess, the director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, told TMD. Such guidance from OCR is not without precedent. The head of OCR under President Barack Obama, Russlynn Ali, issued a controversial Dear Colleague letter in 2011 ordering universities to significantly reduce the standard of proof needed to find students and faculty members guilty of sexual harassment or assault. It also urged schools to allow accusers to appeal non-guilty findings, a directive civil rights groups argued amounted to double jeopardy. 

The Trump administration rescinded the guidelines in 2017, but it’s now drawing on the same authority to implement its own vision for higher education. “All they’re doing is dusting off the playbook that was used by the Obama [administration],” Hess said of the Trump administration’s OCR letter. “There’s a sense that Democratic administrations are going to weaponize Dear Colleague letters to promote agendas. A Republican administration is unilaterally disarming itself if it doesn’t respond.” 

Universities were already beginning to roll back their DEI initiatives before the letter, particularly in light of President Trump’s January 21 executive order requiring that federal grant recipients affirm that they are not operating DEI programs that violate anti-discrimination laws. It also mandated that federal contractors—including some universities—cease promoting diversity and equity initiatives. According to Tyler Coward, the lead counsel for government affairs at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the order raises “significant speech concerns.” A federal judge in Maryland has already granted a preliminary injunction halting much of the order.

But for schools that receive federal funding, which is most of them, the stakes for not complying with these federal directives are high. “The feds have a lot of power to ensure that institutions that accept federal dollars aren’t discriminating on the basis of race, national origin, ethnicity or sex,” Coward told TMD. If found in violation of discrimination laws, “the remedy is the loss of all federal funding,” he added. 

While some universities are holding their ground, others have begun to slash or rebrand their diversity programs in an effort to comply with the Dear Colleague letter, which includes an “End DEI” portal allowing students and staff to report violations. 

Ohio State said it will “sunset” its Office of Diversity and Inclusion, laying off 16 people and eliminating some of the services the office provided. Aggrieved students organized a sit-in on Friday at one of the offices the school closed. Other schools, like the University of Cincinnati, have begun removing DEI-related language from their websites, igniting student protests. University of Colorado Boulder, meanwhile, said it would only make changes “when we have to,” but it previously removed its DEI webpage, replacing it with a site for the “Office of Collaboration.”   

Georgia Tech, the third-largest recipient of federal funding for research of any school in the country, is among the universities forced to walk a tightrope between being sympathetic to student demands and adhering to the new guidance. Speaking to more than a hundred students late last month, Luoluo Hong—the school’s vice president for student engagement and well-being—laid out the university’s plan for both complying with the directives and keeping its existing programs. “We are going to pivot on our terms,” she said. “The names of departments will be different. We are looking at creating new departments that still support students, so the activities, programs, and events that we offer now are still going to go on.” 

The apparent rebrand included the recent creation of a unit called “Belonging and Student Support,” which now houses the school’s resource centers, including spaces for LGBTQ and black students. And Georgia Tech believes it’s in keeping with the Education Department’s guidance. “If you ask me to pick,” Hong told students, “I will sacrifice the names—some of the symbolism—because I want to protect the substantive work. And I think most of us are feeling that way at Georgia Tech.” Other schools, like the University of Wyoming, have renamed their DEI programs in the past year. But an FAQ form about the Dear Colleague letter published Saturday said that simply changing the name of an office is not sufficient to avoid running afoul of the Education Department’s interpretation of federal law. 

One area the tightened guidelines can’t touch is student organizations. “The federal government can’t prohibit institutions from recognizing and providing funds to student organizations, even if they are advocating on behalf of DEI-related principles,” Coward said. “The case law is long and very clear on that.”

But students are nevertheless worried about the memo’s repercussions for life on campus. “I definitely think [students] are nervous about how far this is going to go,” Harrison Baro, a fourth-year student and the president of Georgia Tech Student Ambassadors, told TMD. “At the end of the day, a lot of students who are a part of these communities value these resource centers because it’s a place for them to call home.”

Today’s Must-Read

Toeing the Company Line

Worth Your Time

• The British economy has been in the doldrums for well over a decade—and according to Derek Thompson, writing for the Atlantic, it’s a self-inflicted wound. Housing and energy production, two foundations of the modern economy, have been crippled by a slew of regulations combined with local opposition: “With more choke points for permitting, construction languished from the 1950s through the ’70s. Under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Conservatives rolled back nationalization in several areas, such as electricity and gas production. But their efforts to loosen housing policy from the grip of government control was a tremendous failure, especially once it was revealed that Thatcher’s head of housing policy himself opposed new housing developments near his home. … Despite Thatcher’s embrace of North Sea gas, and more recent attempts to loosen fracking regulations, Britain’s energy markets are still an omnishambles. Per capita electricity generation in the U.K. is now roughly one-third that of the United States, and energy use per unit of GDP is the lowest in the G7. By these measures, at least, Britain may be the most energy-starved nation in the developed world.”
• Los Angeles has begun rebuilding from the Palisades fire, including drawing up plans for new, affordable apartments to replace rent-controlled housing in the wealthy enclave of Pacific Palisades. There’s just one problem: NIMBYs. In the Los Angeles Times, Liam Dillon examines a neighborhood that’s divided over how to move forward with the process of reconstruction. “Because of its wealth and high-quality amenities, Pacific Palisades fit the description of a community prioritized for affordable housing under state and local policies, with the potential for projects to receive financial and zoning incentives. That not only would include homes for middle-income earners, but also the army of lower-income gardeners, housekeepers and nannies that marched into the neighborhood every day to work. Fear of a push for low-income housing fueled a conspiracy theory that Gov. Gavin Newsom was using the disaster to rezone the Palisades from single-family homes to apartments,” he wrote. “Chris Spitz, who has lived in the Palisades for more than three decades, has been active in the neighborhood council for many years. She’s hoping to rebuild her own home and said the rent-controlled apartments that lined Sunset Boulevard allowed those who otherwise couldn’t afford the Palisades to raise their families there. She’d like the buildings to return. But not new ones.”

Presented Without Comment

The Moscow Times: Kremlin Says U.S. Foreign Policy Shift Aligns With Its Own Vision

“The new administration is rapidly changing all foreign policy configurations. This largely aligns with our vision,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a reporter from state television.

“There is a long way to go because a lot of damage has been done to the whole complex of bilateral relations. But if the political will of the two leaders, President Putin and President Trump, is maintained, this path can be quite quick and successful,” Peskov added.

Also Presented Without Comment

CNN: Scientists Have Identified a New Coronavirus in Bats, but It’s Not a Public Health Threat

Also Also Presented Without Comment

The Boston Globe: The Vermont-Quebec Border Runs Right Through This Library. Trump Officials Used It to Stoke Tensions.

On a trip to Vermont following the fatal shooting of a US Border Patrol agent, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem visited the Haskell [library], where she stepped up to the electrical tape and, with a grin, parroted Trump’s taunts while standing on the Canadian side of the line, according to Converse and Deborah Bishop, the library’s executive director.

“She stood on the American side and said, ‘USA No. 1.’ Then she crossed the line and said, ‘The 51st state,’” Bishop said. “She did it at least three times and was very clear in saying, ‘USA No. 1,’ and didn’t even say ‘Canada.’ Just, ‘The 51st state.’”

In the Zeitgeist 

Comedian Shane Gillis hosted Saturday Night Live for the second time on Saturday, and we think this skit is one of the show’s best in a long time. We don’t recommend it as medical advice, though.

Let Us Know

Do you support efforts to end DEI programs at colleges and universities? If so, do you agree with the way the administration is going about it?