Diversity

“We fundamentally object to the government’s position that empowering Black and Brown communities is unconstitutional,” reads a statement from the National Digital Inclusion Alliance.

For the past 60 years, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has required private sector employers with at least 100 employees and certain federal contractors to annually report on the gender and race of their employers. Now the commission has voted 2-1 to rescind this requirement.

The U.S. Department of Justice has come to the determination that the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine illegally considered race in its admissions processes. Additionally, the U.S. Department of Education is launching investigations into five more medical schools.

Black students received just 3.5 percent of all offers to New York City's eight specialized high schools ahead of the fall 2026 semester. Only one Black student received an offer to attend Staten Island Technical High School and three received an offer for Stuyvesant High School, which is considered one of the most prestigious public high schools in the country.

A civil rights complaint filed by the Equal Protection Project claims two housing programs dedicated to Black students and one program dedicated to Hispanic students at the University of Connecticut violate federal anti-discrimination law.

Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton implemented new restrictions regarding how faculty can discuss race in the classroom. Now regional and national faculty organizations are suing Creighton for racial discrimination and for violating professors' free speech.

Craig Trainor, assistant secretary for fair housing and equal opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, recently released a letter declaring that race-based affinity housing at colleges and universities violates federal anti-discrimination law.

The University of Pennsylvania has consolidated three existing offices relating to discrimination, harassment, and compliance into a unified Center for Civil Rights Office.

During the fall 2025 semester, a student submitted an anonymous complaint against social work lecturer Jessica Adams after she displayed a graphic that listed President Trump's “Make America Great Again” slogan as an example of covert White supremacy.

After conducting a year-long investigation into the Ivy League medical school, the DOJ determined that Yale used “racial proxies to circumvent the Supreme Court’s prohibition on using race to select students” and that “Black and Hispanic applicants were admitted with consistently lower academic qualifications than their White and Asian counterparts.”

The U.S. Department of Justice claims the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles has illegally considered race in its admissions processes by admitting Black and Hispanic students with lower academic qualifications than their White and Asian peers.

“When funding disruptions disproportionately affect researchers who focus on health disparities, the consequences go far beyond individual careers,” said Rebecca Fielding-Miller, associate professor at the University of California, San Diego. “They also shape which scientific questions get asked, and whose health ultimately receives attention.”

In an examination of seven cases of legacy preference bans in higher education admissions, scholars from Vanderbilt University have found these bans are not enough to increase campus diversity. Instead, these bans often replace wealthy legacy applicants with other students from high-income backgrounds.

A new study has linked enrollment in ethnic studies courses to higher GPAs, reduced course failure, and better math and science performance for middle and high school students, with Black and Latinx students experiencing the largest gains.

The annual Black Student Alliance Invitational has introduced prospective students to the Black experience at Duke University through overnight visits, networking events, and mentorship opportunities. Now, the university has discontinued the event, some four decades after its creation.

In August, President Trump ordered colleges and universities to collect data on students' race after he raised concerns that institutions were using applicants' personal statements and other proxies to consider race in admissions. A federal judge has halted this effort, saying the demand was rolled out in a “rushed and chaotic manner.”

The scholarship program in question is available to African American and Black students who reside or attend school in a congressional district represented by a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. According to the American Alliance for Equal Rights, this program violates Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

“This isn’t just a program; it’s a movement to ensure every Black student has the resources, connections and support system not just to survive but absolutely thrive,” said Yvette McCutchen, head of the new African American Student Retention Initiative at Davenport University.

Last year, the DOE initiated an investigation into 45 higher education institutions for partnering with The Ph.D. Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students from underrepresented racial backgrounds in their efforts to pursue doctoral degrees in business. The DOE claimed those partnerships discriminate on the basis of race. Thirty-one of those universities have now agreed to end their collaboration with The Ph.D. Project.

“We cannot, and must not, attach race-based conditions when allocating taxpayer funding,” says U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “This is another concrete step from the Trump Administration to put a stop to DEI in government and ensure taxpayer dollars support programs that advance merit and fairness in all aspects of Americans lives.”