How The Trump Administration Is Strong-Arming Higher Education

When it comes to the Trump administration’s battle with higher education, the headlines tend to focus on Harvard and Columbia. Harvard, because it is fighting tooth and nail against overreach. Columbia, because it attempted to abide by Trump demands only to face more conflict.

But the University of Virginia is among other institutions of higher education being strong-armed by the Trump administration. UVA is currently under investigation by the Department of Justice for failing to comply with the president’s total ban on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The probe occurred despite a unanimous decision by the UVA’s Board of Visitors two months ago to abolish the university’s office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and end practices that discriminate on the basis of race. Conservatives, however, believe that UVA leadership has no followed through on that mandate to end DEI.

DOJ lawyers are being egged on by a right-wing organization accusing the university of choosing to “rename, repackage, and redeploy the same unlawful  infrastructure under a lexicon of euphemisms.”  That organization, America First Legal, has been described as “an attack dog” for Trump and lists none other than Stephen Miller as its founder, president and executive director who drew more than a quarter of a million dollars in compensation from the non-profit in 2023, the last year for which it filed a required disclosure with the IRS. Miller, of course, is Trump’s White House deputy chief of policy.

America First has filed more than 100 legal actions against “woke” companies and universities, including New York University and Northwestern. While the NYU case was tossed out of court due to lack of standing, the Northwestern lawsuit is still active, with America First charging that its law school discriminates against white men in hiring faculty and in choosing articles for its law review.

‘A DELIBERATE STRATEGY TO REBRAND, RELABEL, AND OBSCURE DEI INFRASTRUCTURE’ 

In a 98-page letter to the Department of Justice on May 21st, America First Legal cites what it believes are numerous examples where UVA simply renamed a DEI initiative without changing the substance of an office or practice. The organization takes particular aim at UVA’s Darden School of Business, in addition to the university’s law and medical schools.

What Darden, among other UVA schools, is being asked to do would not only impact admission decisions but also scholarship dollars devoted to crafting the best possible class of MBA students. America First Legal effectively wants to not only eliminate scholarship money for under-represented minorities and women; it also wants to eliminate awards to applicants from outside the U.S. on the basis that those awards put white men from the U.S. at a disadvantage.

The organization’s unreasonable demands also would impact the school’s relationships with such organizations as the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, the Forté Foundation, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, and Reaching Out MBA, non-profits that help business schools gain greater access to under-represented applicants, women and LGBT candidates. It also would impact administrative and faculty hiring and promotion policies. Carried to its ultimate end, particularly with DOJ support, America First would pose a significant threat to the partnerships that business schools have forged with these nonprofit organizations.

“Rather than comply with its legal obligations, UVA appears to have deliberately rebranded its discriminatory DEI infrastructure to evade accountability,” claims American First Legal in its letter. “Terms such as ‘Inclusive Excellence,’ ‘Advocacy and Opportunity,’ ‘Community Engagement,’ ‘Strategic Wellness and Opportunity,’ ‘Inclusion and Belonging,’ and ‘Viewpoint Diversity’—some of which were already embedded within its DEI framework—now serve as euphemistic labels across the University’s schools, departments, administrative divisions, and official communications. What is unfolding is not bureaucratic oversight but a deliberate strategy to rebrand, relabel, and obscure DEI infrastructure, preserving its unlawful substance while shielding it from legal scrutiny.”

DARDEN IS AMONG UVA SCHOOLS BEING TARGETED BY AMERICA FIRST LEGAL

The letter, which shows proof of a fairly deep examination of what UVA has made publicly available on its websites, pays special attention to the university’s business school. “The Darden School of Business (‘Darden’) exemplifies UVA’s rebranding of discriminatory DEI practices,” claims America First Legal. “Replacing its ‘Diversity and Inclusion’ webpage with an ‘Inclusive Excellence’ page, Darden retains diversity-focused scholarships, programming, and a Chief Diversity Officer who oversees strategic implementation. UVA’s website explicitly states that its inclusive excellence framework ‘infuse[s] inclusion and belonging into every aspect’ of its ‘operation and culture.’ UVA’s shift in language to ‘inclusion and belonging’ is not a benign or unrelated initiative. It is part of the ‘Inclusive Excellence’ model adopted in 2019 for the very purpose of embedding DEI across UVA and other universities across the country. By removing overt references to ‘diversity’ while retaining the same discriminatory practices under euphemistic terms, UVA is not complying with federal law; it is rebranding its unlawful conduct.

“Nowhere is this clearer than in Darden’s ‘Scholarships for Inclusive Excellence.’ These scholarships are backed by a $125 million endowment and prioritize applicants based on impermissible characteristics, including race (‘under-represented minorities’), sex (‘women’), identity (‘LGBTQ students’), international students (‘national origin’) and ‘Breakthrough Scholars’—a Darden-specific awarded through the school’s inclusive excellence framework that’s part of its DEI-driven effort to shape a ‘diverse and inclusive student body.’ By reserving awards for specific groups to ensure classrooms ‘reflect the diverse world,’ these scholarships perpetuate UVA’s unlawful use of discriminatory preferences in its operations.

“Darden also partners with external organizations to offer scholarships that favor students based on impermissible characteristics, such as the Reaching Out MBA (ROMBA) Fellowship for LGBTQ+ students. This fellowship provides a minimum $20,000 scholarship and rewards applicants for their demonstrated commitment to promoting LGBTQ+ equality rather than academic or professional merit. While such preferences may not violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibit discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in federally funded programs, they contravene Executive Orders 14151 and 14173, which mandate equal treatment and prohibit policies favoring specific groups based on impermissible characteristics, including sex or gender identity.”

TARGETING ORGANIZATIONS THAT HELP THE UNDERREPRESENTED GET INTO SCHOOL

The organization singles out by name several Darden administrators including the former senior director of global diversity, equity and inclusion recruiting, who now holds the title senior director of global recruiting, and the former associate director who now has the title associate director of global recruiting. Changing their titles and erasing the conservative trigger word diversity wasn’t enough. America First Legal looked up the publicly disclosed job descriptions for both officials and found that they were virtually unchanged. The person’s duties, according to America First, “still emphasizes diversity-focused pipelines and partnerships with DEI-affiliated partner organizations.

“These include the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management—whose stated mission is to reduce the underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans in the member school’s enrollment and management; ROMBA, which awards fellowships to applicants based on LGBTQ+ identity and advocacy, and the Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT)—an identity-based recruitment network that seeks to ‘correct the dramatic underrepresentation of minorities in leadership positions.” It didn’t occur to America First that the school didn’t have enough time to alter a job description posted long ago.

If the DOJ follows up on America First’s demands, a school’s ability to recruit and enroll women, internationals, Blacks and Hispanics students, and gay or queer candidates would be greatly diminished. After UVA, you can bet that other universities and business schools will be next.

DON’T MISS: TRUMP’S ATTACK ON HARVARD’S FOREIGN STUDENTS WILL HAUNT U.S. HIGHER EDUCATION FOR YEARS or THE TOP U.S. MBA PROGRAMS WITH THE MOST INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS

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