Updates August 26, 2025
It took far too long to finally tackle the BBB, always a lesson that canceling DEI waits for no one!
Health care
Health systems are abandoning gender-affirming care, overruling practice standards and clinical judgment. These decisions come on the heels of subpoenas issued by the Dept. of Justice requesting extensive electronic health records (including personal information) from at least 20 health systems.
Reminder, under the OBBBA, refugees and asylees will no longer be eligible for on health insurance access across many fronts: Medicare, Medicaid, and Marketplace subsidies. Asian Americans make up the largest groups of both refugees and asylees in the U.S.
Research
The Supreme Court paused a ruling by Massachusetts District judge William Young that had required NIH to rescind its terminations of DEI-related grants— NIH is now again free terminate these grants.
The Administration posted a new Executive Order requiring that federal grants, after peer and agency review, require approval from a political appointee to ensure that research activities serve the President’s priorities.
HHS is terminating the Minority Biomedical Research Program- in the middle of the grant cycle and at the beginning of the academic year, just before tuition and stipends should be disbursed.
Higher education
Federal:
Students for Fair Admissions dropped its case against West Point and the Air Force…because the prior military diversity policies have since been dropped.
Executive Order requires that universities submit admissions data on race and sex, aiming to make a standard policy beyond concessions wrangled from individual universities.
Data matters because the administration is using declines in white male representation as “evidence” of discrimination in its cases against universities.
The Administration has also indicated it will refuse to defend the Dept. of Education Hispanic Serving Institutions program in response to a lawsuit again led by Students for Fair Admissions. More than 600 HSIs stand to lose their federal grants.
East Coast:
After successfully ousting the president of UVa, the administration is now pursuing a fourth investigation into another public university, George Mason, for unlawful hiring and admissions, even though the university’s president has already eliminated all of their DEI programs. The Dept. of Education Office of Civil Rights already concluded their investigation and found GMU guilty of Title VII violation.In addition to issuing an apology, revising policies and training, the Dept. of Ed. is requiring ongoing data access on recruitment, hiring, promotion and retention.
The DOJ recently charged GWU with violating civil rights law.
The administration successfully negotiated agreements (extorted funds from) with Columbia, Brown, and Cornell. Agreements require schools to provide their admissions and (in some cases, hiring) data. Many are concerned that because these are litigated over limited charges of antisemitism, that the end result will be to increase antisemitism.
The State Department launched an investigation into Harvard’s J-1 visa program, again under the guise of national security, using the language of Sinophobia and Islamophobia— and of course, a major concern in graduate medical education and Asian immigrant physicians.
Midwest and South:
DOE launched an investigation into universities (Louisville, University of Nebraska Omaha, University of Miami, University of Michigan, and Western /Michigan) that offer scholarships and aid to undocumented students and DACA recipients, even though those funds are not federal— the charge is that such funding discriminates against “American-born” students. Asian Americans make up the fastest growing undocumented populations in the US: estimated 1 out of every 8 Asian immigrants is undocumented.
The Ohio State banned the use of land acknowledgements.
West Coast:
UCLA paid out $6.5M to settle an anti-semitism suit brought by two students and a faculty member, still had their federal funding frozen in the same week, and is now being pressured to pony up $1 billion. At the same time, UCLA’s Ethnic Studies programs- including Asian American studies- have been targeted by vandalism over a dozen times. UCLA’s events remind us that sometimes the Un-DEI call is coming from inside the house.
Stanford re-upped its commitment to legacy admissions (13.6% of undergrad) and dropped out of the Cal Grant program for low-income students. While Stanford has promised to use its own funds to make up the difference, the financial imperative is clear: one class of legacy students would bring in up to $25M, vs. the $4M needed for the Cal Grant gap. (Ellen Berrey laid out how elite universities play diversity without fundamental reforms towards justice 10 years ago).
