A group of Pennsylvania elected officials held a press conference and met with senior Penn administrators to discuss the importance of sustaining DEI initiatives on Feb. 25.
Credit: Jean ParkSenior Penn administrators met with Pennsylvania lawmakers on Tuesday morning to discuss the University’s rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, with multiple elected officials expressing concern about recent changes — and one calling the meeting “bullshit.”
On Feb. 25, local lawmakers met with Interim Penn President Larry Jameson, Provost John Jackson Jr., and members of Penn’s Office of General Counsel and Office of Government and Community Affairs at College Hall “to discuss the decision and urge action to reverse it,” according to a press release. The elected officials criticized Penn’s swift rollback of DEI policies in response to recent federal actions and alleged the University lacked accountability, failed to defend DEI compared to its legal fight for funding from the National Institutes of Health, and delivered damaging messages to marginalized communities.
Pennsylvania state Sens. Anthony Williams (D-Delaware, Philadelphia), Nikil Saval (D-Philadelphia), and Art Haywood (D-Montgomery, Philadelphia), along with Philadelphia City Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, Pennsylvania state Rep. Rick Krajewski (D-Philadelphia), Pennsylvania state Rep. Napoleon Nelson (D-Montgomery), and University Board of Trustees member Marshall Mitchell attended both the meeting and a press conference held in front of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School that took place beforehand.
“We appreciate the concerns expressed by local elected officials,” a University spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Daily Pennsylvanian. “The University of Pennsylvania is committed to non-discrimination in all of our operations and policies.”
According to multiple elected officials, Penn administrators referred to diversity as a “lightning rod” during the meeting.
“That’s when some of us took umbrage with the fact that someone would actually say that in front of a room of people of color,” Williams said of the comment. “Thinking, at minimum, read the room, let alone how profound it is.”
After the meeting — which lasted for over an hour — Gauthier told the DP that administrators asserted “the University has the same level of commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion that they have always had.”
“I don’t think they understand the gigantic signal that they’ve sent to students, to faculty, to the community, to the entire country about whether Black and brown students and historically underrepresented populations are going to be protected on this campus,” Gauthier said.
Williams said that administrators employed “a lot of legal jargon” when asked about “why this happened.” He remarked that at the meeting, when lawmakers asked who was responsible for authorizing the changes, administrators said there was a “matrix of decision makers” at Penn and that “there was not an identifiable person [who] took responsibility for making this decision.”
“We’ve seen them fight in other … instances — they launched a lawsuit around the NIH funding,” Gauthier said. “I would question whether diversity holds the same level of importance to the University. We want to see them fight just as vigorously [for DEI] as they are around their funding commitments.”
On Feb. 10, Penn filed a lawsuit challenging the NIH’s decision to cap indirect cost funding at 15%, arguing that the cut would threaten over 350 jobs, jeopardize $170.9 million in research funding for 2025, and disrupt critical medical trials and studies.
At the press conference prior to the meeting, Saval said that Penn “has made a cowardly move” in “rushing to heed dog-whistle demands from a feckless federal leadership and dismantle their programs that welcome students and workers from an expansive range of backgrounds.”
“While other universities across our city — as we’ve heard — our commonwealth, our region, are reaffirming their commitment to their values in response to attempts to scare, distract and divide us, Penn has chosen simply to fold in advance,” Saval added.
Haywood alleged in his remarks that Penn had “cosigned” on to “several lies” and “decided in this moment in our history to become collaborators with the criminal president.”
“I would just remind Penn that presidential administrations come and they go, but when Trump is gone, our community will still be here, and we will not forget that you sold us out to protect your own skin,” Gauthier said at the press conference.
Penn’s four undergraduate and 12 graduate schools have all made substantial changes to their respective DEI websites following a Jan. 20 executive order by 1968 Wharton graduate and President Donald Trump that required universities that received federal funding to eliminate certain DEI programs. On Feb. 11, Penn erased references to diversity and affirmative action from its nondiscrimination policies. By Feb. 14, the University had taken down its central DEI website, replacing it with a brief statement on equal opportunity.
A number of Penn faculty members recently told the DP they were disappointed by the University’s “proactive response” to federal actions. Professors expressed their concern that the changes would weaken Penn’s reputation and harm students, staff, and faculty. One faculty member said that it was “troubling how quickly Penn has seemingly surrendered to the Trump administration’s bullying.”
Editor-in-Chief Emily Scolnick contributed reporting.
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