The United States Department of Education published a letter on Feb. 14 threatening to revoke federal funding for all schools that do not remove diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Credit: Ethan YoungThe United States Department of Education published a letter last week threatening to revoke federal funding for all schools and universities that do not remove all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The Feb. 14 “Dear Colleague” letter from Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor expanded the DOE’s interpretation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which struck down affirmative action, to apply to academic programming more broadly. Trainor wrote that educational institutions have 14 days to comply with the new requirements in order to continue receiving federal funding.
A request for comment was left with a University spokesperson.
In the letter, Trainor wrote on behalf of the DOE that the Supreme Court decision, which held that affirmative action policies were unconstitutional, did not solely apply to the use of race in admission. Rather, the letter addressed that the use of race-based considerations in any aspect of educational institutions was not legal.
“If an educational institution treats a person of one race differently than it treats another person because of that person’s race, the educational institution violates the law,” the letter stated. “Put simply, educational institutions may neither separate or segregate students based on race, nor distribute benefits or burdens based on race.”
Additionally, the letter criticized practices by some universities that promote “segregation by race” at graduation ceremonies and dorms, referring to them as “a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history.”
The letter also mentioned that other indirect DEI programming could be in violation of such legal principles, as these programs “frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not.”
“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions. The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” the letter stated.
Penn recently scrubbed the University’s primary Diversity and Inclusion website as part of a series of actions that have resulted in the removal of references to DEI initiatives and practices on various University sites.
The change comes alongside the removal of the DEI webpage for the School of Arts and Sciences. Penn also took down DEI websites for schools and programs including the School of Nursing, the Wharton School, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and Penn Athletics.
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