Some schools still promote racial preferences and ideologies, while others have renamed their DEI functions.
President Donald Trump recently put the wealthiest U.S. colleges and universities on notice: If your endowment exceeds $1 billion, prepare for an investigation.
The president said he plans to shut down what he called “illegal and immoral discrimination,” under the umbrella of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs with racial or gender preferential treatment in student admission, financial aid, employment, and curricula at elite institutions.
Under a Jan. 21 executive order that cites long-standing civil rights laws, identity-based functions such as so-called antiracism training or minority hiring initiatives are prohibited. Those who don’t scrap DEI face costly repercussions.
More than 120 U.S. colleges and universities have $1 billion-plus endowments, including all Ivy League institutions and the most selective flagship state universities, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
Trump advised that up to nine schools in that category will be audited in the coming months, though any American higher education institution found in violation could lose federal money for research, student financial aid, and other programs under the executive order.
“They are really worried about it—and they should be,” Steven McGuire, a senior fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, told The Epoch Times. “The federal government can do some things that are financially debilitating.”
On Jan. 30, Boston University announced that its Center for Antiracist Research, which employs 13 people, will close at the end of this academic year.
Many other schools across the country, in anticipation or response to Trump’s order or previous anti-DEI laws at the state level, have already rebranded their DEI offices with new descriptions such as “access,” “community engagement,” or “civil rights” to avoid scrutiny. Northeastern University in Boston, for example, now has an office of “Belonging.”
“Our reimagined approach centers on embracing the experiences of individuals across the global university system to maximize impact at the institutional level,” the school’s new Belonging web page states.
Louis Galarowicz, a research fellow at the National Association of Scholars, estimates that large flagship public universities in more populated states spend tens of millions on DEI departments that include investigators who investigate harassment, bias, and “microaggression” complaints.
