Since President Donald Trump took office, his administration has issued a foray of orders for universities to terminate diversity, equity and inclusion programs. With “vague” calls to end “egregious and discriminatory” departments and a full-on aid freeze, the White House has sent colleges across the country into a frenzy of renaming departments, changing protocols and removing identity-based protections.
NYU has not yet made clear changes to its policies or websites, unlike dozens of other major universities, including Columbia University and Northeastern University. In a statement to WSN, university spokesperson John Beckman said administrators will continue to “closely monitor new developments to federal policies that relate to our campus.”
“NYU remains committed to our entire community and to our values,” Beckman said.
The extent to which Trump’s guidelines will impact NYU have remained unclear. Though a private institution, the university is still bound by the standards set by accreditation agencies, which have to be approved by the Department of Education. He also specifically called for investigations into universities with endowments of over $1 billion — a group that includes NYU — regardless of whether they receive federal funding.
“It’s a kind of ominous threat looming over all major American institutions,” David Glasgow, the executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at NYU, said in an interview with WSN. “NYU — and really any large institution — will have to get a lot of legal advice around their DEI, and whether they are vulnerable to an investigation.”
Here’s what has happened since Trump took office.
Trump’s first day in office
When Trump commenced his term with hundreds of executive actions, one of his first moves was to call for the end to all DEI-based grants, departments and hiring processes. In a Jan. 21 executive order, he said the programs were “dangerous, demeaning and immoral” violations of civil rights laws and revoked several executive orders from previous administrations related to diversity initiatives.
“People think DEI means some radical movement — it isn’t,” said Michael Funk, the program director of higher and postsecondary education at NYU. “If you take away those safeguards, it opens up an environment where folks can operate out of discriminatory practices.”
The initial order evoked confusion among university administrators and higher education experts. Some universities changed website names, removed protections for transgender athletes and cancelled diversity-related seminars. However, there was little explanation as to how the order would be legally enforced.
While the decision faced backlash from universities and scientific institutions, conservative academics have argued that it’s necessary to curb government spending. In an interview with WSN, National Association of Scholars President Peter Wood said universities’ inclusion offices oppose civil rights laws that prohibit differential treatment based on identity.
“There is a world of difference between just acknowledging the effects of racial difference and acting on them in a way that is pernicious,” Wood said. “If you’re acknowledging and then acting on that acknowledgement to confer a privileged position to some people against a disprivileged position for others, you’re doing something that is both morally wrong and illegal.”
A crackdown on research
In an effort to slash government spending, Trump called for a pause to all federal aid on Jan. 27 — leading to the termination of at least two NYU grants. The order aimed to give federal agencies time to evaluate which programs supported DEI initiatives so they could be promptly cut. Trump rescinded it two days later.
Since then, federal agencies have identified thousands of research grants related to race, gender, environmentalism and other subjects deemed “woke.” The sweeping orders faced criticism after researchers expressed uncertainty on whether their funding would stand under federal budget cuts. Additional limitations on research from the National Institutes of Health sparked criticism from scientists who said it would slow medical advancements.
“Even though it’s in the private sector, it has an immense amount of public interest,” Funk, who has also authored studies on DEI initiatives, told WSN. “We also work within community-based organizations, who also are receiving federal funding — so, without a doubt, it still directly would impact us.”
Two-week warning
On Feb. 14, the Department of Education gave schools a two-week deadline to eliminate their DEI programs and “racial preferences” as a factor in admissions, hiring or financial aid. The administration has not clarified what will happen after Feb. 28.
Ann Marcus, director of the Steinhardt Institute of Higher Education Policy, said that race can play a role in the hiring process at academic institutions — just not to the extent that Trump has claimed.
“When a faculty department has no faculty of color or major office in the university that’s trying to have a diverse student body, they are going to want to correct that,” Marcus said. “It doesn’t mean they’re going to hire someone who’s not completely qualified, but it does change the dynamic a little bit.”
The deadline was announced in a letter sent to each state’s education department. The four-page document claimed that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision on affirmative action sets precedent to ban consideration of race in all university practices — not just admissions.
Now alleging that DEI programs counter civil rights laws, the letter outlines a clearer pathway to legal arguments against institutional DEI practices. Since the letter was sent, universities have continued to rename centers and remove diversity-oriented wording from their policies.
Blocked in courts
On Friday evening, a court in Maryland blocked Trump’s DEI-related executive orders pending the outcome of a lawsuit from the American Association of University Professors and several other higher education organizations. It is not immediately clear how the verdict will affect existing orders.
The four plaintiffs alleged that the executive orders impose vague mandates by enforcing existing legal obligations — specifically those related to the affirmative action ban — rather than creating new ones. It also claimed that the executive order leaves too much authority to attorney generals, who are instructed to identify and deter DEI programs regardless of whether they receive federal funding.
“Our mission and vision of ourselves as an institution is not just about obeying statutes, but is about beliefs that we have in the value of different perspectives, different voices, different points of view, different ways of looking at the world, coming from different places in the world — all of these things that sort of enrich an intellectual environment of a university,” said Fabienne Doucet, executive director of a research center at NYU focused on equity in schools. “In theory, it shouldn’t make a difference because our broader mission, vision and values are oriented toward who we want to include and celebrate.”
Contact Omar Drissi at [email protected].
