Following a growing pattern, university removes website references to diversity, equity and inclusion.
After the Trump administration told schools to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs or face federal funding cuts, USC has deleted the website for its universitywide Office of Inclusion and Diversity and merged it into another operation, scrubbed several college and department-level DEI statements, renamed faculty positions and, in one case, removed online references to a scholarship for Black and Indigenous students.
Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review
The University of Southern California’s actions — similar to some other universities throughout the country — appear to be aimed at avoiding federal scrutiny, according to USC faculty and staff and reviews of portions of the USC website archives.
References to DEI mission statements, diversity programming or DEI staff positions have been changed or eliminated by the School of Cinematic Arts, School of Dramatic Arts, Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Roski School of Art and Design and the Department of Earth Sciences.
On Friday, USC also announced that the work of its Office of Inclusion and Diversity “will continue through the merging of the full office … with our Culture Team,” said a campuswide email from Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Andrew T. Guzman and Senior Vice President of Human Resources Stacy Giwa.
The office’s website previously touted “USC’s long history of access and opportunity” and support of a “diverse and inclusive community.”
The changes at USC come as universities nationwide navigate warnings from the U.S. Department of Education, which last month released a letter telling schools that 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” violates antidiscrimination law.
The letter, which laid out a new interpretation of how federal officials would enforce existing rules, said the department would “no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination,” singling out white and Asian American students as victims. It said the government would “vigorously enforce the law on equal terms” at all schools that get federal assistance.
The Department of Education has not announced any investigations or specific funding cuts.
Trends taking shape on U.S. campuses
Nationwide, universities have taken different stances. The president of Colorado State University, citing a need for federal funding, said it would remake its race-related programs and avoid a “gamble” in challenging the Trump administration. At the University of Cincinnati, the president said that he had “little choice” but to fall in line. Regents for the University of Alaska voted for DEI to be scrubbed from the system. The University of Iowa will end dorm communities next year for Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ students, according to news reports.
Jerry Kang, a law professor and DEI expert who was UCLA’s first vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion until 2020, said it was not surprising that “universities engage in risk-averse overcompliance.”
“That’s what universities have always done. That’s what corporations have always done. We tend to follow political winds,” he said. But, Kang added, “You cannot just play defense without articulating a muscular conception of what you stand for in this space.”
Leaders of the University of California and California State University said they already follow state antidiscrimination law, including Proposition 209, which nearly three decades ago outlawed the use of race in admissions to state institutions. Stanford announced in January that it would evaluate diversity efforts after President Trump signed a White House executive order banning DEI in federal programs and contracts. The order is temporarily on hold after a lawsuit filed by a Washington, D.C.-based college diversity officers association.
Mitchell Chang, UCLA’s interim vice provost for equity, diversity and inclusion, said at a town hall meeting last week that there were no plans to change the school’s programs, such as racially themed graduation ceremonies, cultural dorm room floors or Black and Latino student clubs or resource centers. He cited recent court challenges, including a federal lawsuit by a teachers union over the DEI directive, that could prevent enforcement of the federal guidance.
“We’re maintaining our regular course. … We’ll adjust as necessary. We have a plan B,” Chang said, adding that “we have to take these challenges to our DEI efforts very seriously and plan for potential dismantling of them.”
As concerns grow, USC takes action
At USC, one of the state’s most diverse and largest universities, the response within several colleges and departments has gained attention. To be sure, vast portions of the university’s diversity program descriptions remain untouched on its website, including dozens of webpage references.
A department chair’s email — sent to linguistics faculty at the Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences last week and shared with The Times by three USC employees — made the case in suggesting that faculty change or remove public-facing DEI references.
“… In the light of such very real worries, universities and other institutions dependent on federal funding all over the country are now all removing wording from visible sites that will attract the government AI scrapers looking to identify and route out support for DEI,” said the message from Andrew Simpson, a professor of linguistics. “This is obviously shocking and incredibly distasteful. However, the alternative, to lose all federal grant support would simply be catastrophic.”
“Faculty are not being asked to adjust the content of their teaching,” the memo said, adding later: “Please consider how you may be able to help in this unpleasant exercise, for the purely pragmatic reason of survival.”
In response to requests from The Times, Simpson said he “did not mandate any action” but was passing on a message from his dean to department faculty. “The choice of how to proceed in the current situation is entirely individual, to be made freely by each person, and is/was not mandated/ordered by anyone.”
Moh El-Naggar, the interim dean of Dornsife, replied via email to a Times request, saying, “We’re navigating our response as an academic unit of USC.”
In a statement, a USC spokesman did not respond to a question about whether there have been universitywide instructions to change or remove DEI statements or programs.
The spokesman directed The Times to last week’s campuswide message from President Carol Folt. In it, Folt said, “we will continue to review our programs and practices to ensure both that their direct relationship to our academic mission is clear, and that we comply fully with evolving legal requirements.” The letter linked to an FAQ that said USC was “reviewing its ‘DEI-related’ programs and practices” in order to “ensure alignment with our compliance obligations in light of recent executive orders and agency guidance.”
Going back too many years as a researcher and friend of many at USC they never would have folded to the “stagecoach robbery” crowd.
The Democrats have become the gang that cannot shoot straight, and want to hold up the people for failed socialist policies.
Geez
Thank goodness there are a number of schools and organizations who have said enough.
As in the USC Song….. FIGHT ON!