Trump Aims to Break Higher Ed’s DEI Addiction

President Donald Trump’s Department of Education launched a bold offensive last week through the agency’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) against what many Americans have long protested as the scourge of modern academia: discriminatory so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.

The investigations specifically target 45 universities—including elite institutions like MIT, Yale, Cornell, and Duke. The OCR is alleging that these schools violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by partnering with The Ph.D. Project, a nonprofit that purportedly engages in race-based discrimination.

This move by the Trump administration, coupled with investigations into six universities for race-based scholarships and another for racial segregation, signals a reckoning for the radical left’s obsession with racial preferences over merit. For American conservatives, this long-overdue investigation is a triumph of principle, a rejection of divisive ideology, and a step toward restoring fair-mindedness in education.

The Ph.D. Project, which claims to diversify business education by aiding underrepresented groups—specifically Black, Latino, and Native American students—has been exposed as a Trojan horse for racial exclusion. According to the Department of Education, its race-specific eligibility criteria mean that universities collaborating with it are engaging in “race-exclusionary practices” in their graduate programs.

This isn’t diversity; it’s discrimination dressed up as progress. The list of implicated schools reads like a who’s who of liberal academia: Georgetown, Vanderbilt, UC-Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon, among others. These institutions, once bastions of intellectual rigor, have apparently traded meritocracy for identity politics, and now they’re facing the consequences.

For years, conservatives have warned that DEI initiatives undermine the fundamental American value of equal treatment under the law. Title VI is clear: no program receiving federal funding can discriminate based on race, color, or national origin. Yet, under the guise of “equity,” universities have allegedly flouted this law, creating parallel systems that favor certain racial groups while sidelining others—often white and Asian students who, contrary to progressive stereotypes, may come from disadvantaged backgrounds themselves.

The OCR’s “Dear Colleague Letter,” issued on February 14, 2025, and signed by Acting Assistant Secretary Craig Trainor, lays bare this hypocrisy. It condemns the “pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences” that have “emanated throughout every facet of academia,” from admissions to scholarships to campus programming. Trainor’s words are a clarion call: discrimination, whether against minorities or majorities, is illegal and morally indefensible.

The University of Utah, one of the 45 schools under scrutiny, exemplifies the institutional cowardice that has enabled this rot. In a statement released on March 13, it acknowledged the investigation and pointed to its compliance with a new Utah state law banning DEI efforts—a law that forced the closure of identity-based cultural centers and the reassignment of staff.

But this retreat from DEI wasn’t principled. It was instead a reaction to legal pressure. Had Utah and its peers stood firm on merit from the start, they wouldn’t now be scrambling to justify their partnerships with racially exclusionary groups like The Ph.D. Project. Instead, they bowed to the woke zeitgeist, only to find themselves in the crosshairs of a reinvigorated federal government.

Newly confirmed Education Secretary Linda McMahon, a staunch ally of President Trump, has made it clear that this crackdown is just the beginning. “Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin,” she said in a press release last week. “We will not yield on this commitment.”

Her words echo the commonsense belief that individual achievement, not group identity, should determine what opportunities someone receives. Under McMahon’s leadership, the Department of Education is not only targeting racial preferences but also tackling antisemitic harassment and sex discrimination, with 60 schools already under investigation for the former offense.

This multi-front assault on leftist orthodoxy in education is a fulfillment of Trump’s campaign promise to dismantle the DEI apparatus that has poisoned campuses nationwide.

Critics—predictably, the teachers’ unions and progressive pundits—have cried foul, filing lawsuits claiming the department’s directives are vague and infringe on free speech.

The nation’s two largest unions argue Trainor’s letter oversteps by policing academic expression. But this is a smokescreen. The issue isn’t speech; it’s action—specifically, the ostensibly illegal use of federal funds to prop up discriminatory programs. If universities want to push racialist agendas, they can do so at their own expense, not on the taxpayers’ dime. The threat of losing federal funding, as outlined in Trainor’s letter, is a powerful tool, and it’s about time it was wielded.

The universities’ responses have been tepid at best. UC-Berkeley’s spokesman Dan Mogulof offered a boilerplate commitment to a “campus free of discrimination,” while the University of Notre Dame insisted it “in no way practices or condones discrimination.” These platitudes dodge the core issue of their schools’ entanglement with a program that, by the Department of Education’s account, explicitly discriminates.

Meanwhile, the six schools probed for race-based scholarships—Grand Valley State, Ithaca College, and others—face similar scrutiny, as does the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa for alleged segregation. This isn’t a fishing expedition – it’s legal accountability.

For conservatives, the OCR’s actions are a vindication of a decades-long fight against the encroachment of racialism in education. The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action in admissions was a start, but DEI’s tentacles reach far beyond admissions offices. Trainor’s letter accuses universities of encouraging “segregation by race at graduation ceremonies and in dormitories,” a shameful regression to a darker era.

The left’s justification—that these practices promote “inclusion”—is Orwellian doublespeak. True inclusion means judging people by their character and ability, not their skin color.

As this battle unfolds, the stakes couldn’t be higher. If the Trump administration’s investigative pressure succeeds, it could dismantle the DEI edifice, forcing universities to return to their core mission: educating based on merit. If it fails—thwarted by lawsuits or institutional defiance—the left’s grip on academia will tighten, further eroding fairness and excellence.

Conservatives must rally behind Trump and McMahon, ensuring that this crackdown isn’t just a flash in the pan but a permanent rollback of a failed experiment. The message is clear: in America, opportunity belongs to the capable, not the connected—or the racially curated.

W.J. Lee has served in the White House, NASA, on multiple political campaigns, and in nearly all levels of government. In his free time, he enjoys the “three R’s” – reading, running, and writing.