Since the start of the year, an alarming number of US colleges and universities have significantly reduced, if not altogether removed, their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs on campus, and the funding and offices that often accompanied them.
State-level efforts to remove DEI from institutions, including and perhaps especially schools, have been ongoing for several years. According to July 2024 research from the Movement Advancement Project, at least 256 bills have been introduced in state legislatures attacking DEI in different settings — a number that is no doubt higher now, in September 2025. The acronym itself refers to a somewhat ambiguous entity which can encompass anything from student clubs focused on identity, humanities departments focused on race, gender, or religion, or general affirmative action practices.
.jpg)
During President Trump's first weeks in office in January 2025, he issued several executive orders during his first weeks in office which specifically targeted DEI efforts more broadly. This is part of the Trump administration’s larger agenda to shape US higher education as a whole, and exert increasing control over both public and private universities in the United States, which goes beyond just DEI.
In October 2025, the Trump administration asked nine US universities, including Vanderbilt, the University of Pennsylvania, Dartmouth, and others, to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” in exchange for more favorable access to federal funds. The document asks the schools to commit to the White House’s vision on issues such as admissions, free speech, college affordability, and other topics, a vision communicated in both public speaking appearances as well as the number of executive orders and other memos issued since Trump re-took office in January.
One executive order, titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” rescinds affirmative action and the nondiscrimination requirements previously upheld under an existing executive order in institutions including schools, and requires federal contractors and other recipients of federal funds to certify that they do not operate any “illegal” DEI programs. The EO claims:
Another order, titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” aims to eliminate what they call “illegal and immoral discrimination programs" instituted under the Biden administration.
Much of the President’s Executive Order-based push against DEI has resulted in active lawsuits. For example, as of October 2025, there are currently 17 active lawsuits against the latter executive order, which is currently blocked temporarily, according to data from Brookings.
Following the executive orders, the US Department of Education issued a statement professing that it has “taken action to eliminate harmful Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.” In the ensuing months, several colleges throughout the United States would similarly aim to eliminate funding, offices, and even staff associated with DEI — inspired in part by the Trump administration’s bluster, but seemingly as well by a chilling within university administrations that goes beyond the specific remits of the White House’s demands. This is seen in austerity measures where particular departments and roles are being closed or reduced; simultaneously, labor organizing within higher education is seeing continuous pushback from their university administrations.
In an interview with Teen Vogue this past spring, Todd Wolfson, the elected president of the American Association of University Professors, explained how the role of the labor movement on campuses was a key aspect of responding to ideological shifts and economic cuts. “We felt that before Donald Trump was elected, that [increased labor organizing] was really necessary because of the 70 years of divestment that have taken place on our campuses and all the outcomes, which have frankly queued up the attack from these right-wing ideologues that we've seen more recently,” argued Wolfson.
The University of Michigan moved to suspend its DEI programs in March of this year. A March 27 email from the University’s president and three executive vice presidents, obtained by Teen Vogue, explained that the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (ODEI) and the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion (OHEI) will close. It further announced that that the school’s DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan — the “umbrella strategy for schools, colleges, and units” — will be “discontinued,” and that “statements related to a person’s commitment to DEI will no longer be solicited or considered in admissions, hiring, promotion, awards, annual reviews, or other assessments for faculty and staff.” This last policy follows the University’s recent decision to end the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring.
The University President’s memo argues that the DEI cuts are a result of Trump’s anti-DEI push. Notably, however, Michigan’s shifting attitudes towards DEI precede the current Trump administration. In an October 2024 article from the New York Times, a member of the University’s Board of Regents — which was partially responsible for the roll back of the DEI program — was quoted as saying: “DEI here is absolutely well intentioned, extremely thoughtful in its conception and design, but it’s so virtuous that it’s escaped accountability in a lot of ways.” In response to a request for comment, the University of Michigan shared prior public statements from the university about the change in policies.
Kevin Cokley, University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, told Teen Vogue in an email interview he feels there is a large percentage of the student body and faculty who are very disappointed in these decisions. “There is still a small group of individuals who have not given up and who remain hopeful that DEI in some form will return to the university,” said Cokley, who previously explored these sentiments in an op-ed for The Michigan Daily, a student newspaper. “In the meantime, I think the numbers of Black and certain other minoritized students, such as Latinx, along with certain minoritized faculty, will decrease.”
There have been similar shifts in policy at Columbia University. Following the January 2025 anti-DEI executive orders, the university removed its DEI policy language from several of its webpages, including the ones for Undergraduate Student Life and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In addition, they eliminated the Equal Opportunity Affirmative Action Office, folding it into the new Office of Institutional Equity.
On March 7th, the Department of Justice, Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Education, and the US General Services Administration cancelled approximately $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia, citing “the school’s continued inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” The Trump administration has attributed funding cuts at several campuses to antisemitism, despite criticism from those who argue that antisemitism is being cynically weaponized by the administration to target higher education, not to mention the government’s lack of response towards Muslim or Palestinian students on campus.
In response, Columbia released a statement on March 21st, acquiescing to several of the administration’s demands. Among other things, the University agreed to place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies department under review by a new official, who would also assist in creating the review process for hiring the university’s non-tenured staff and for approving curricular changes.
Columbia reached a settlement with the Trump administration in July and the majority of its funding has been reinstated. The University did not supply a response to Teen Vogue’s request for comment in time for publication.
“These specific changes are in the broader context of two, now going into three, years of the university's indifference towards the wellbeing and health and safety of its students and workers,” Vayne Ong, a PhD candidate in History at Columbia and a Union Officer with Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) - UAW Local 2710, told Teen Vogue. “Seeing the way and the speed at which they were willing to cooperate with the overtly harmful administration in March is part of a much larger pattern.”
Columbia has also had huge layoffs: the school let go of nearly 180 people working on grant-funded projects affected by the government cuts in May, according to an announcement from the School’s president. Columbia’s sister school, Barnard College, had massive layoffs recently, with 77 fulltime staff members let go in July. On August 8th, Columbia filed an Unfair Labor Practice Charge against the student workers union, alleging the union was refusing to bargain in good faith. Meanwhile, the university cut several graduate instructor teaching positions, with many student workers not finding out about the cuts until about a month before they were set to begin teaching.
Universities across the country have similarly faced budget cuts, some resulting in the ending of whole programs, and hiring freezes happening across the board, largely in the humanities. At the University of Oregon, 176 total positions were laid off, with the University blaming a $3.65 million budget deficit for the FY25 fiscal year. Indiana University is set to discontinue, consolidate or suspend nearly 250 academic programs, in compliance with a new state law which requires colleges to eliminate programs with what the state considers “low productivity.” The decision will disproportionately affect the Humanities and Language programs at the school, and may lead to staff and faculty layoffs.
Ong feels the two issues — growing anti-DEI sentiment, and restrictions to funding and hiring — are likely related. “A lot of us are doing work about race and rethinking our country’s awful history that is controversial to their current [presidential] administration and government,” she told Teen Vogue.
Graduate students at the University of Chicago who spoke to Teen Vogue share those feelings. According to reporting from Inside Higher Ed, the University announced in August that it would be pausing new Ph.D. student admissions for the 2026–27 academic year across nearly all departments, including Art History, Cinema and Media Studies, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, Middle Eastern Studies, and South Asian Studies. The Social Sciences Division has also announced it will not admit Ph.D. students into the Political Economy, Social Thought, Conceptual and Historical Studies or Science, or Anthropology departments in the 2026-7 academic year. In addition, the University announced in August that it plans on cutting $100 million dollars from its budget, stating that faculty hiring and doctoral degrees are two areas where spending will be reduced.
In emails obtained by Teen Vogue, the University blamed the changes on “very real budget challenges.” Dean Amanda Woodward assured the community that these “difficult decisions are made with a focus squarely on ensuring the long-term, robust future” of the school. But Alicia Badea, a humanities graduate worker in the German department, feels differently. “We have this sense of the University preemptively doing these things to be in line with what we see the Trump administration undertaking,” they told Teen Vogue. “It feels like the school is taking advantage of this moment of political uncertainty."
Evan Yamaguchi, the president of Graduate Students United (GSU - United Electrical) and a PhD candidate in molecular engineering, is similarly frustrated. “UChicago is a very wealthy institution,” he told Teen Vogue. “They have the money to support these fields and are choosing not to. The workers at this university should not be the ones to bear the brunt of the school’s financial mismanagement or budgetary crisis.”
In September 2025, the University made a webpage in which the Provost announced several budget reduction measures including reducing the funding available for future PhD students by 30% in the next five years, reducing faculty future hiring growth from 30% to 20%, and cutting up to 150 staff in the upcoming academic year. The University of Chicago did not respond to Teen Vogue’s request for comment.
Students and faculty across the country continue to navigate the attacks on their student bodies and their academic integrity. Following the October 2025 news about the “compact,” students organizing with the youth climate justice-focused Sunrise Movement announced their members at the nine targeted colleges were planning a coordinated response to the news.
"This compact [is] starting with nine colleges and universities, but we know that this is just the beginning of this latest escalation in this administration's continuous attacks on higher education,”said Evan Bowman, vice chair of Higher Education Labor United, in a statement issued by Sunrise. “Workers, students, campus community members across this great country are coming together to fight for a higher education system that actually works for all — one that is affordable, strengthens freedom and democracy, and stands up to its public mission.”
Many of the students and faculty interviewed said they feel their student bodies are committed to fighting for protecting DEI on campus — including the departments that champion it — even if schools seemingly don’t see its importance. “People don’t want cuts, and don’t want pauses on admissions,” Badea said. “There’s a real recognition that this is not just about our current work but the future of higher education and academia. We have a real desire to preserve and defend our field and the values of humanistic inquiry.”
