U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has passed multiple executive orders banning Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives in public universities and federal agencies, threatening to revoke federal funding if they do not comply. This has caused many colleges and universities — public and private — as well as corporations to scale back these practices. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is terminating research funding that doesn’t align with priorities of the HHS or National Institutes of Health, or to recipients who don’t comply with federal anti-discrimination laws.
This means that if you are conducting research that centers marginalized communities, there is a chance it might not be approved by certain institutions even if they are abiding by the law. For example, Loyola Marymount University canceled two sessions on air quality and environmental justice from its annual justice symposium due to the anti-DEI executive orders. The University of Colorado School of Medicine also recently opened a scholarship originally for underrepresented students to all applicants and a summer research program for multicultural students to students of all races.
For those wanting to enter a doctoral program and conduct research, there is unfortunately a question of whether or not it is possible to openly complete research that highlights underrepresented groups. By enforcing these DEI bans in universities, the administration is targeting the research that centers underrepresented groups of people, to silence those perspectives that initiate critical discussions.
I personally question whether or not I can continue my research, as it centers topics that the current administration would scrutinize. The DEI bans, the suppression within these institutions, and the erasure of DEI programs is causing many to be hesitant of their academic careers. I have been engaging in this work throughout my college career. However, now there is a question of how this work will be able to make a difference if discussions of underrepresented perspectives and experiences are being erased from the public sphere.
Institutions that take a more leftist and liberal position are the very ones that are targeted and surveilled the most with these restrictions, as they tend to have people of color in the majority. Institutions being targeted by the government are scared into abiding by executive orders because they don’t want to draw attention to themselves and thereby endanger their most vulnerable students. This includes some institutions complying with executive orders and shutting down their DEI offices, while others are renaming them. Renaming those programs seems to be the only way to continue to give individuals the support and funding they need to continue their work. But this ultimately fails to sustain programs that are in place directly in support of marginalized groups of people.
Furthermore, this causes students of color and other marginalized groups to not have programs specifically geared toward uplifting their perspectives, leading them to not have the support to openly share their critical thinking. Many relatively new DEI programs have helped build more inclusive learning environments for underrepresented groups of people, thus forming spaces that allow different individuals to engage in discussions surrounding the current laws being put in place to strip individuals of their rights and suppress free and academic speech. Trump’s overall goal is to suppress critical thought and lessen representative perspectives within exclusionary systems such as educational institutions. The gradual decline of research centered around underrepresented groups will cause individuals to be less critically aware of disproportionate experiences that regularly disrupt marginalized communities.
Educational institutions are already exclusionary spaces that function on hegemonic ideologies, and marginalized students are consistently excluded from these environments. So while the renaming or removal of DEI programs seems to be the last resort for many institutions, it causes the sense of community that was once initiated through the implementation of DEI programs to decline.
Being a student of color can be isolating, navigating institutions that were not originally made to support them. The programs that worked to support those students were small steps in helping them finally have their voices and perspectives heard. Renaming them or completely discontinuing them just erases the voices that the programs were intended to support. The small progress that has been made in supporting underrepresented voices within academia is being stripped along with everything else that garners free, collective discussions. Again, erasing underrepresented perspectives will lessen the critical thinking needed to engage in collective action against oppressive systems within society. It is frightening to think about how the Trump administration is actively trying to erase the perspectives of people of color and other marginalized groups in the effort of suppressing individuals’ critical thinking.
