Updates: April 25, 2025

Federal

• The NIH issued a notice that they will issue no new, renewal or continuation awards to entities (e.g. universities) that "operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology in violation of Federal anti-discrimination laws" or "engage in a discriminatory prohibited boycott,"  in which "discriminatory prohibited boycott" means a boycott of Israeli companies.

• The NSF has frozen all new awards and is cancelling awards related to DEI and research on mis/disinformation. Revised guidance on the NSF priority #7 (broadening impact, by increasing participation of women and minorities in STEM) has been revised to state this is not a priority relative to #1-6, and proposed activities for #7 can only be included if there are no preferences or exclusions related to those groups. Related NSF award terminations were issued today.

• The Department of Justice has canceled grants on violence prevention, opioid deaths, and anti-Arab, anti-Jewish, and anti-Asian hate crimes. These grants were primarily to community organizations and local governments, but also included subawards to researchers.

• The administration will discontinue DOJ regulations on disparate-impact liability, which has historically been used to target discriminatory policies, programs and behaviors, by demonstrating disparate impact on marginalized groups. For example, if a plaintiff wanted to demonstrate how some practices, e.g. faculty promotion, produce racial discrimination, without explicitly stated racial discrimination, they could demonstrate disparate impact by illustrating statistically different outcomes by race and ethnicity.

• The administration issued an Executive Order that the Secretary of Education will monitor, suspend or terminate higher education accreditation agencies that conduct discrimination, through DEI. The order specifically names accreditation for law and medical schools and training programs. It also establishes new principles including that accreditors require institutions to measure student outcomes without reference to "race, ethnicity or sex."

• Harvard is resisting federal government actions taken against it, arguing that the administration's requests threaten First Amendment rights, academic freedom, and Title VI authority. These include: instituting "merit-based" admissions and faculty hiring; auditing of faculty, students, staff and courses for "viewpoint diversity," reforms of student discipline policy, audit and reform specific schools for past anti-semitism, in addition to ending all DEI programs. This suggests the administration's stance that it would prefer for other universities.

Updates: April 11, 2025

Federal

• The Department of Education published FAQs on the Dear Colleague letter that orders education institutions to cease DEI activities or lose federal funding, with more detail on how the SFFA decision will be interpreted across nearly all education programs, not only admissions, and also how they will assess for racial discrimination in programs and policies that are race neutral.

• The Department of Justice launched an investigation of UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Irvine and Stanford, claiming violation of SFFA ruling and racial discrimination in admissions.The Dept of Education sent a memo to State Education Agencies to certify compliance with Title VI and eliminate DEI programs in K-12 or lose federal funds. So far 10 states have refused to sign and California may also.

• NIH U54 grants for faculty diversity recruitment (FIRST) programs were terminated. In addition, R25, T34, T32, KL2 programs have been terminated, and some individual K01/K08, K99/R00 grants also cancelled.

• International students and scholars had their records deactivated from SEVIS

State

• The Regents of the University of California ordered the end of required statements of contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion, in recruitment and hiring. This decision originated from the regents, not UC Office of the President, nor advised by Faculty senate.

Updates: April 5, 2025

Federal

• The Department of Education published FAQs on the Dear Colleague letter that orders education institutions to cease DEI activities or lose federal funding, with more detail on how the SFFA decision will be interpreted across nearly all education programs, not only admissions, and also how they will assess for racial discrimination in programs and policies that are race neutral.

• The Department of Justice launched an investigation of UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Irvine and Stanford, claiming violation of SFFA ruling and racial discrimination in admissions.

• The State Department is continuing to track, detain and deport deport non-citizen students and faculty.

• The Department of Health and Human Services experienced major staffing cuts and also continued to terminate grants, and particularly, training programs. Many R25, T34, F31, T32, K01, and K99/R00, including many within NGIMS, have been terminated early (i.e. unlawfully) or not renewed. This will require laying off staff and ending programs across entire pathways from undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral fellows, to our junior faculty.

State

• The University of California Board of Regents ordered the UCs to end required standalone statements of contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion, in recruitment and hiring (not all campuses required statements, either). Although they did not ban the option of voluntary statements outright, the revised application system has made eliminated the possibility of candidates uploading a statement, even if a candidate wishes to do so. During interviews, search committees and interviewers are not allowed to directly ask about a candidate’s contributions, either. The decision at UC is notable because unlike targeted Ivy League institutions, or public universities in schools with bans on DEI, the University of California has not been singled out by the Administration for this practice, nor has it been moved by state legislation.

Updates: March 21, 2025

Federal

• Continued cancellation of already-awarded federal funding, for programs/institutions supposedly supporting “illegal DEI”. Most actions appear to be unlawful but have continued despite judicial rulings. 

• Elimination of most of the Department of Education staff, planned transfer of functions to other agencies.

• Immigration detention and deportations from university communities: to impose new federal restrictions on academic freedom.

• Continued removal of civil rights protections for LGBTQ individuals: Accompanied by rise of violent threats and doxxing.

• Restrictions on public service loan forgiveness: no longer eligible for applicants working for organizations that commit "illegal DEI"