There is a saying that in the blink of an eye, everything can change. Certainly, if someone had blinked during the first week of President Trump’s return to the White House, they would have undoubtedly missed the numerous ways the new administration wasted no time reshaping America. From pardoning those convicted of participating in the January 6 insurrection, to attempting to end birthright citizenship as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, to attempting to freeze potentially billions of federal spending already authorized by Congress, the Trump administration is flexing its power to see how far it can go in reshaping America.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) efforts have come under especially heightened scrutiny and hostility. In this commentary, we will focus in particular on the impact of these new executive orders on higher education and workforce development. We’ll explore the language of the executive orders, and illustrate how the critiques against DEIA fail even against their own metrics of promoting ability and merit within these two overlapping sectors.
What is DEIA?
First off, what is DEIA? And what do DEIA programs contribute to our country’s education and workforce development?
For many Americans, DEIA, or diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs, have opened doors to opportunities that have historically not been available to them. Conservative pundits often argue that DEIA programs are discriminatory in nature and consider race above merit, but that could not be further from the truth. DEIA finds its earliest roots in Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson (though it has been repealed by the Trump administration). EO 11246 prohibited government agencies from discriminating based on race, religion, or national origin, and called for government agencies to take affirmative action to increase the representation of minorities, women, and other underrepresented groups within the government workforce, as well as within contracting organizations that receive money from the federal government. At its core and from the very beginning, DEIA has been about increasing the representation of the federally supported workforce to look more like the diversity of America based on, but not limited to the following:
- Race
- Ethnicity
- Gender Identity
- Sexual Orientation
- Socioeconomic Status
- Religion
- Veteran Status
- Age
- Physical Disabilities
- Mental Disabilities
Decades have passed since the signing of EO 11246, and the private sector and higher education institutions have also doubled down on their efforts to invest in DEIA programs. For private-sector organizations, there was a realization that DEIA programs are not only good for ensuring their workplaces look like the communities they serve, but also that diversity is ultimately good for business. DEIA builds trust with potential customers for their services, because it is an indicator that their background and life experience were considered in developing the product they are considering purchasing. For higher education institutions, DEIA programs ensure that students from underrepresented communities are supported as they navigate college.
DEIA builds trust with potential customers for their services, because it is an indicator that their background and life experience were considered in developing the product they are considering purchasing.
For example, many colleges and universities have veteran resource centers to assist veterans when they arrive at college. Veterans typically do not match the typical undergraduate student profile: 47 percent have children and/or are married, and 62 percent are first-generation college students. As such, these centers provide veteran students with resources to ease their transition into college while also connecting them with other students who share their background. DEIA has never been about excluding merit as a criteria for evaluating candidates for jobs, colleges, or other opportunities. Instead, it is about ensuring that people are not excluded from accessing opportunities because of personal characteristics and factors beyond their control. And once they are not excluded from accessing an opportunity, DEIA ensures that people are not ostracized or feel excluded from the rest of their peers.
What’s in the Trump Executive Orders?
Two of the executive orders that President Trump has signed since taking office seek to rid both the federal government and the private sector of DEIA programs and grants, which the administration alleges have caused discrimination.
The EO “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” seeks to reverse and eliminate all federal government DEIA initiatives, grants, and trainings. After the signing of this EO, the Trump administration informed all federal agencies that they must put all DEIA-related personnel on administrative leave to eventually fire them, and mandated that all DEIA-related websites be taken down. In another unorthodox move, the administration ordered federal employees to report the existence of DEIA initiatives or programs that may be “hidden” by vague language, or else face possible firing themselves.
Another executive order signed by President Trump aimed at DEIA initiatives is titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” Unlike the executive order discussed above, which primarily targets federal agencies, the second EO targets non-governmental entities such as colleges and corporations. In the EO, the Trump administration frames DEIA as possibly violating federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination, and directed federal agencies to “combat” companies and education institutions with DEIA initiatives. Specifically, the order instructs agencies to identify sizeable private sector companies, universities with large endowments, and large non-profits that may be in violation of anti-discrimination laws due to DEIA practices and initiatives, and calls for the attorney general of the United States to make recommendations for ending DEIA in the private sector. Finally, the EO also rescinded the landmark EO signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson aimed at diversifying the federal workplace and providing protection against discrimination.
The EO’s framing of DEIA initiatives and programs as violating anti-discrimination laws is likely to have a chilling effect: we have already seen several private sector organizations roll back DEI initiatives in response.
The “Ending Illegal Discrimination” EO also called on agency heads to identify all federal grants related to DEIA. Although legal scholars doubt that the administration has the power to dictate private-sector and university DEIA practices, the EO’s framing of DEIA initiatives and programs as violating anti-discrimination laws is likely to have a chilling effect: we have already seen several private sector organizations roll back DEI initiatives in response.
[H2]Some Key Impacts of the Executive Orders
In the following sections, we’ll take a look at just a few of the areas in which these executive orders are likely to have severely negative consequences. They cover a range of populations and sectors, but have one thing in common: weakening the institutions that we rely on to get ahead and to support ourselves and our families.
Attacking DEIA Hurts the U.S. Federal Workforce
One illustration of the destructive effects that these executive orders will have can be found in the federal workforce, over which federal labor policy obviously has the most immediate impact. Thanks to DEIA policies, the degree of equity and opportunity that federal service has offered to American workers has been considerable. Data analyzed in 2023 found that while far from perfect, the United States’ federal workforce is racially diverse. African Americans are overrepresented at nearly 19 percent, compared to their national population at nearly 14 percent. However, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans are underrepresented, comprising approximately 10, 7, and 2 percent of the federal workforce, respectively. Collectively, racially minoritized federal workers comprise nearly 40 percent of the workforce, and on average, federal service pays a family-sustaining salary, with nearly half of all workers making between $50,000 and $109,999 a year.
The opportunity for a racially minoritized person in the United States to have a federal career that provides entry into the middle and upper classes, comparable to their white colleagues, is a valuable one, and should not be undermined by removing DEIA-related efforts and initiatives. Employment in the federal government usually guarantees a sustainable retirement package, affordable and high-quality health insurance, and opportunities for scheduled performance-based salary increases, and people of color in the United States have faced systemic barriers when accessing all of these benefits (for example, nearly 60 percent of Black and Latino workers lack retirement coverage). If you are fortunate to be a federal worker, your employment is the bridge to a social safety net.
Rescinding Measures That Foster Belonging Erodes Workplace Culture
The data is unequivocal: fostering a sense of belonging among workers is statistically significant in improving retention, productivity, and mental health. A Harvard Business Review study reports that having a sense of belonging at work correlates with a 56-percent increase in job performance, and a 50-percent drop in turnover rates. In 2021, McKinsey and Company conducted a study on the Great Resignation and the astronomical attrition rates during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their study analyzed the root causes of worker turnover and found that not feeling a sense of belonging was among the top three reasons employees quit their jobs, with 51 percent of employees reporting this as the cause. The other two reasons were not feeling valued by their company and/or issues related to their manager.
Not feeling a sense of belonging was among the top three reasons employees quit their jobs, with 51 percent of employees reporting this as the cause.
To once again take the federal workforce itself as an example, the chilling effects of the anti-DEIA executive orders have already caused some federal employee resource or affinity groups to be put on pause in the past three weeks. Many meetings and convenings have been abruptly canceled, and federal workers are eliminating the groups preemptively, out of fear of retaliation. Employee resource groups (ERGs) are designed to provide community and a sense of belonging, and particularly to those from marginalized backgrounds. From racial affinity groups to groups for parents of intellectually or physically disabled children, these communities will no longer benefit from concerted efforts to ensure they have everything they need to work in comfort and security.
In practice, this means an affinity group for parents of intellectually disabled children can no longer convene at work to discuss the best educational services, emerging research, or recommended physicians for their children. For people of color, there will no longer be an affinity group to discuss microaggressions at work, ease feelings of isolation, and learn the safe, proper reporting procedures for incidents of discrimination. The loss of affinity spaces exacerbates professional isolation, while also making it more difficult for people of color to navigate turbulent political changes. Without these groups, historically marginalized workers have suffered in silence without leadership support in their agencies.
Dismantling Efforts to Reduce Occupational Segregation, Pay Equity, and Job Quality Hurts All Workers
The anti-DEIA executive orders will derail the Biden administration’s efforts to ensure that historically marginalized workers are not confined to the lowest pay grades and the least prestigious positions. The previous administration issued an equity action plan (a plan that seems to have been taken down from government sites), underscoring fifty concrete action steps to reduce occupational segregation and increase pay equity. All of these federal agency equity action steps have since been terminated. The steps included a particular focus on supporting workers of color in the Southeast United States (six of those states have the highest poverty rates in the country, and an overlapping number of those states also have the highest incarceration rates).
Stopping these formerly bipartisan efforts not only weakens the country’s morale: it also endangers our resurgence as a key global player in innovation and manufacturing.
Let’s take the manufacturing sector as an example. Manufacturing jobs open pathways to economic mobility for formerly low-wage workers, people of color, and the incarcerated (in and out of the facilities). As TCF has emphasized, in manufacturing, employers realized they will not meet their output and innovation goals without a diverse workforce, and nearly 50 percent of companies are concerned about DEIA-related workforce challenges. Having no federal guidance and, now, abhorrent opposition to promoting DEIA in the workforce undermines the equitable participation of under- and unemployed, historically marginalized people in companies that are invested in their personal and financial growth, as well as in the United States’ productivity. Stopping these formerly bipartisan efforts not only weakens the country’s morale: it also endangers our resurgence as a key global player in innovation and manufacturing. The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 ignited that global race, but the gains won are now in serious jeopardy.
Our workforce ecosystem historically existed without meaningful metrics for defining job quality. The previous administration resolved this gap and issued metrics employers can use as quality standards. Included in those seven metrics were DEIA, equitable outreach and hiring, and empowerment and representation.
One of the authors conducted a phone interview with a workforce trainer who illustrated the chilling effect of the anti-DEIA EO. A recipient of federal funding from the previous administration, the trainer faces challenges providing supportive services that fell under DEIA provisions and now have been cut. They described the aftermath as “paralyzing.” Here is a summary of their experience:
For years, the trainer provided free workforce training to communities of color. People could receive on-site job training. Since the executive order, the trainer has halted all new and existing supportive services initiatives. Under these programs, trainees could receive rent assistance, auto expenses, and transportation costs, but all of these have ended, and the loss of this support will have a severe impact on attrition for trainees. Without these supportive services, trainees may be forced to drop out of their workforce training program confining them to remaining unemployed, or underemployed.
When It Comes to STEM and Research, HBCUs and Minority-Serving Institutions Have Been Left Behind
Since the founding of the first college dedicated specifically to Black students and achievement in 1837, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have acted as anchor institutions that continue to punch above their weight. Despite being chronically underfunded, HBCUs fuel our economy and STEM talent: HBCUs make a $16.5 billion annual economic impact on communities nationwide and produce a quarter of Black STEM graduates, including 46 percent of the Black women with STEM degrees who graduated between 1995 and 2004. But in spite of this academic pride and success, currently, only one (Howard University) out of 101 HBCUs has attained the tier 1 Carnegie classification, also known as R1 status, a classification that denotes a top-tier research institute.
Having the R1 classification indicates that a university is at the forefront of research and innovation, and is a very important designation when it comes to attracting both federal grants and private funding. Historically, the debasing of HBCUs as no longer relevant in a post-segregation society and intentional financial neglect have locked these institutions out of grants and the tier 1 classification. For example, the outdated and subpar laboratories at some underfunded HBCUs puts them at a disadvantage when competing for grants from the National Science Foundation, in cases where the eligibility requires certain updated equipment and laboratories to conduct the experiments.
President Biden committed $17 billion in research grant funding to HBCUs, bringing many institutions closer to R1, but President Trump’s executive orders threaten to derail progress in research and the workforce development that comes with it. Not only do HBCUs lose: the country also moves backwards in research and development, potentially falling behind China and Taiwan, an acute issue that was once a common cause from both sides of the congressional aisle.
Efforts to Modernize America’s Infrastructure Were Bipartisan–Until Now
From expanding universal broadband to repairing bridges, urban and rural America benefits from modernized infrastructure. The Biden administration reinvigorated U.S. industrial policy through three pieces of legislation, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Going on a road trip anywhere in America these past two years meant seeing signs stating a bridge or waterway was funded by BIL, and the best part is that these projects created jobs for local communities.
President Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” threatens the success of the BIL by curtailing DEIA and environmental justice efforts, particularly the Justice40 initiative, which ensured that 40 percent of federal spending on climate and clean energy programs flowed to disadvantaged communities. The executive order also terminates all environmental justice offices. This means that, for instance, the rural community of Danville, Arkansas may no longer receive the $2.5 million safe room for a tornado shelter it so badly needs (in 2008, a deadly tornado destroyed the area). From increasing diversity in the manufacturing of electric school buses to the creation of a diverse, skilled clean energy workforce, as DEIA programs are dismantled, the country becomes, as an MIT piece warned us, the country of the lost Einsteins.
Looking Forward
The Trump administration faces multiple lawsuits in response to these executive orders. Recently, for instance, the American Association of University Professors filed a lawsuit against the executive orders targeting DEIA initiatives. The lawsuit claims that the administration overstepped its authority by threatening to cut funding for DEIA-related programs. Specifically, the plaintiffs argue that the president cannot unilaterally freeze funding for programs that Congress has already approved. Additionally, the plaintiffs in the lawsuits argue that there is a lack of clarity surrounding which DEIA programs or initiatives are affected by the orders. The plaintiffs argue that the ambiguity has left them unable to fully understand the implications of the directives, thereby infringing upon their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
Universities and workforce organizations should avoid prematurely eliminating these initiatives.
Given the increasing number of lawsuits and ongoing questions about the president’s legal authority to rescind funding for DEIA programs, universities and workforce organizations should avoid prematurely eliminating these initiatives. The executive orders appear to be intended, at least in part, to intimidate those involved in DEIA work and universities into discontinuing these programs, which is reflected in the vague language of the orders. Universities, in particular, must recognize that bans on DEIA initiatives undermine their fundamental mission: to provide students with a broad understanding of the diverse perspectives and cultures that characterize the world in which they live. While complying with the executive orders may seem like a straightforward solution, dismantling DEIA initiatives would undermine the essential role of universities as places that foster diverse viewpoints and cultural understanding, and would reverse the tremendous progress that both the public and private sectors have made in ensuring that everyone has a fair chance at the livelihood they want and deserve.
Tags: higher education, educational equity, DEIA
How Anti-DEIA Policies Are Taking Higher Education and the Workforce Backward
There is a saying that in the blink of an eye, everything can change. Certainly, if someone had blinked during the first week of President Trump’s return to the White House, they would have undoubtedly missed the numerous ways the new administration wasted no time reshaping America. From pardoning those convicted of participating in the January 6 insurrection, to attempting to end birthright citizenship as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, to attempting to freeze potentially billions of federal spending already authorized by Congress, the Trump administration is flexing its power to see how far it can go in reshaping America.
Diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) efforts have come under especially heightened scrutiny and hostility. In this commentary, we will focus in particular on the impact of these new executive orders on higher education and workforce development. We’ll explore the language of the executive orders, and illustrate how the critiques against DEIA fail even against their own metrics of promoting ability and merit within these two overlapping sectors.
What is DEIA?
First off, what is DEIA? And what do DEIA programs contribute to our country’s education and workforce development?
For many Americans, DEIA, or diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programs, have opened doors to opportunities that have historically not been available to them. Conservative pundits often argue that DEIA programs are discriminatory in nature and consider race above merit, but that could not be further from the truth. DEIA finds its earliest roots in Executive Order 11246, signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson (though it has been repealed by the Trump administration). EO 11246 prohibited government agencies from discriminating based on race, religion, or national origin, and called for government agencies to take affirmative action to increase the representation of minorities, women, and other underrepresented groups within the government workforce, as well as within contracting organizations that receive money from the federal government. At its core and from the very beginning, DEIA has been about increasing the representation of the federally supported workforce to look more like the diversity of America based on, but not limited to the following:
Decades have passed since the signing of EO 11246, and the private sector and higher education institutions have also doubled down on their efforts to invest in DEIA programs. For private-sector organizations, there was a realization that DEIA programs are not only good for ensuring their workplaces look like the communities they serve, but also that diversity is ultimately good for business. DEIA builds trust with potential customers for their services, because it is an indicator that their background and life experience were considered in developing the product they are considering purchasing. For higher education institutions, DEIA programs ensure that students from underrepresented communities are supported as they navigate college.
For example, many colleges and universities have veteran resource centers to assist veterans when they arrive at college. Veterans typically do not match the typical undergraduate student profile: 47 percent have children and/or are married, and 62 percent are first-generation college students. As such, these centers provide veteran students with resources to ease their transition into college while also connecting them with other students who share their background. DEIA has never been about excluding merit as a criteria for evaluating candidates for jobs, colleges, or other opportunities. Instead, it is about ensuring that people are not excluded from accessing opportunities because of personal characteristics and factors beyond their control. And once they are not excluded from accessing an opportunity, DEIA ensures that people are not ostracized or feel excluded from the rest of their peers.
What’s in the Trump Executive Orders?
Two of the executive orders that President Trump has signed since taking office seek to rid both the federal government and the private sector of DEIA programs and grants, which the administration alleges have caused discrimination.
The EO “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” seeks to reverse and eliminate all federal government DEIA initiatives, grants, and trainings. After the signing of this EO, the Trump administration informed all federal agencies that they must put all DEIA-related personnel on administrative leave to eventually fire them, and mandated that all DEIA-related websites be taken down. In another unorthodox move, the administration ordered federal employees to report the existence of DEIA initiatives or programs that may be “hidden” by vague language, or else face possible firing themselves.
Another executive order signed by President Trump aimed at DEIA initiatives is titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity.” Unlike the executive order discussed above, which primarily targets federal agencies, the second EO targets non-governmental entities such as colleges and corporations. In the EO, the Trump administration frames DEIA as possibly violating federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination, and directed federal agencies to “combat” companies and education institutions with DEIA initiatives. Specifically, the order instructs agencies to identify sizeable private sector companies, universities with large endowments, and large non-profits that may be in violation of anti-discrimination laws due to DEIA practices and initiatives, and calls for the attorney general of the United States to make recommendations for ending DEIA in the private sector. Finally, the EO also rescinded the landmark EO signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson aimed at diversifying the federal workplace and providing protection against discrimination.
The “Ending Illegal Discrimination” EO also called on agency heads to identify all federal grants related to DEIA. Although legal scholars doubt that the administration has the power to dictate private-sector and university DEIA practices, the EO’s framing of DEIA initiatives and programs as violating anti-discrimination laws is likely to have a chilling effect: we have already seen several private sector organizations roll back DEI initiatives in response.
[H2]Some Key Impacts of the Executive Orders
In the following sections, we’ll take a look at just a few of the areas in which these executive orders are likely to have severely negative consequences. They cover a range of populations and sectors, but have one thing in common: weakening the institutions that we rely on to get ahead and to support ourselves and our families.
Attacking DEIA Hurts the U.S. Federal Workforce
One illustration of the destructive effects that these executive orders will have can be found in the federal workforce, over which federal labor policy obviously has the most immediate impact. Thanks to DEIA policies, the degree of equity and opportunity that federal service has offered to American workers has been considerable. Data analyzed in 2023 found that while far from perfect, the United States’ federal workforce is racially diverse. African Americans are overrepresented at nearly 19 percent, compared to their national population at nearly 14 percent. However, Hispanics, Asian Americans, and Native Americans are underrepresented, comprising approximately 10, 7, and 2 percent of the federal workforce, respectively. Collectively, racially minoritized federal workers comprise nearly 40 percent of the workforce, and on average, federal service pays a family-sustaining salary, with nearly half of all workers making between $50,000 and $109,999 a year.
The opportunity for a racially minoritized person in the United States to have a federal career that provides entry into the middle and upper classes, comparable to their white colleagues, is a valuable one, and should not be undermined by removing DEIA-related efforts and initiatives. Employment in the federal government usually guarantees a sustainable retirement package, affordable and high-quality health insurance, and opportunities for scheduled performance-based salary increases, and people of color in the United States have faced systemic barriers when accessing all of these benefits (for example, nearly 60 percent of Black and Latino workers lack retirement coverage). If you are fortunate to be a federal worker, your employment is the bridge to a social safety net.
Rescinding Measures That Foster Belonging Erodes Workplace Culture
The data is unequivocal: fostering a sense of belonging among workers is statistically significant in improving retention, productivity, and mental health. A Harvard Business Review study reports that having a sense of belonging at work correlates with a 56-percent increase in job performance, and a 50-percent drop in turnover rates. In 2021, McKinsey and Company conducted a study on the Great Resignation and the astronomical attrition rates during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their study analyzed the root causes of worker turnover and found that not feeling a sense of belonging was among the top three reasons employees quit their jobs, with 51 percent of employees reporting this as the cause. The other two reasons were not feeling valued by their company and/or issues related to their manager.
To once again take the federal workforce itself as an example, the chilling effects of the anti-DEIA executive orders have already caused some federal employee resource or affinity groups to be put on pause in the past three weeks. Many meetings and convenings have been abruptly canceled, and federal workers are eliminating the groups preemptively, out of fear of retaliation. Employee resource groups (ERGs) are designed to provide community and a sense of belonging, and particularly to those from marginalized backgrounds. From racial affinity groups to groups for parents of intellectually or physically disabled children, these communities will no longer benefit from concerted efforts to ensure they have everything they need to work in comfort and security.
In practice, this means an affinity group for parents of intellectually disabled children can no longer convene at work to discuss the best educational services, emerging research, or recommended physicians for their children. For people of color, there will no longer be an affinity group to discuss microaggressions at work, ease feelings of isolation, and learn the safe, proper reporting procedures for incidents of discrimination. The loss of affinity spaces exacerbates professional isolation, while also making it more difficult for people of color to navigate turbulent political changes. Without these groups, historically marginalized workers have suffered in silence without leadership support in their agencies.
Dismantling Efforts to Reduce Occupational Segregation, Pay Equity, and Job Quality Hurts All Workers
The anti-DEIA executive orders will derail the Biden administration’s efforts to ensure that historically marginalized workers are not confined to the lowest pay grades and the least prestigious positions. The previous administration issued an equity action plan (a plan that seems to have been taken down from government sites), underscoring fifty concrete action steps to reduce occupational segregation and increase pay equity. All of these federal agency equity action steps have since been terminated. The steps included a particular focus on supporting workers of color in the Southeast United States (six of those states have the highest poverty rates in the country, and an overlapping number of those states also have the highest incarceration rates).
Let’s take the manufacturing sector as an example. Manufacturing jobs open pathways to economic mobility for formerly low-wage workers, people of color, and the incarcerated (in and out of the facilities). As TCF has emphasized, in manufacturing, employers realized they will not meet their output and innovation goals without a diverse workforce, and nearly 50 percent of companies are concerned about DEIA-related workforce challenges. Having no federal guidance and, now, abhorrent opposition to promoting DEIA in the workforce undermines the equitable participation of under- and unemployed, historically marginalized people in companies that are invested in their personal and financial growth, as well as in the United States’ productivity. Stopping these formerly bipartisan efforts not only weakens the country’s morale: it also endangers our resurgence as a key global player in innovation and manufacturing. The CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 ignited that global race, but the gains won are now in serious jeopardy.
Our workforce ecosystem historically existed without meaningful metrics for defining job quality. The previous administration resolved this gap and issued metrics employers can use as quality standards. Included in those seven metrics were DEIA, equitable outreach and hiring, and empowerment and representation.
One of the authors conducted a phone interview with a workforce trainer who illustrated the chilling effect of the anti-DEIA EO. A recipient of federal funding from the previous administration, the trainer faces challenges providing supportive services that fell under DEIA provisions and now have been cut. They described the aftermath as “paralyzing.” Here is a summary of their experience:
For years, the trainer provided free workforce training to communities of color. People could receive on-site job training. Since the executive order, the trainer has halted all new and existing supportive services initiatives. Under these programs, trainees could receive rent assistance, auto expenses, and transportation costs, but all of these have ended, and the loss of this support will have a severe impact on attrition for trainees. Without these supportive services, trainees may be forced to drop out of their workforce training program confining them to remaining unemployed, or underemployed.
When It Comes to STEM and Research, HBCUs and Minority-Serving Institutions Have Been Left Behind
Since the founding of the first college dedicated specifically to Black students and achievement in 1837, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have acted as anchor institutions that continue to punch above their weight. Despite being chronically underfunded, HBCUs fuel our economy and STEM talent: HBCUs make a $16.5 billion annual economic impact on communities nationwide and produce a quarter of Black STEM graduates, including 46 percent of the Black women with STEM degrees who graduated between 1995 and 2004. But in spite of this academic pride and success, currently, only one (Howard University) out of 101 HBCUs has attained the tier 1 Carnegie classification, also known as R1 status, a classification that denotes a top-tier research institute.
Having the R1 classification indicates that a university is at the forefront of research and innovation, and is a very important designation when it comes to attracting both federal grants and private funding. Historically, the debasing of HBCUs as no longer relevant in a post-segregation society and intentional financial neglect have locked these institutions out of grants and the tier 1 classification. For example, the outdated and subpar laboratories at some underfunded HBCUs puts them at a disadvantage when competing for grants from the National Science Foundation, in cases where the eligibility requires certain updated equipment and laboratories to conduct the experiments.
President Biden committed $17 billion in research grant funding to HBCUs, bringing many institutions closer to R1, but President Trump’s executive orders threaten to derail progress in research and the workforce development that comes with it. Not only do HBCUs lose: the country also moves backwards in research and development, potentially falling behind China and Taiwan, an acute issue that was once a common cause from both sides of the congressional aisle.
Efforts to Modernize America’s Infrastructure Were Bipartisan–Until Now
From expanding universal broadband to repairing bridges, urban and rural America benefits from modernized infrastructure. The Biden administration reinvigorated U.S. industrial policy through three pieces of legislation, including the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. Going on a road trip anywhere in America these past two years meant seeing signs stating a bridge or waterway was funded by BIL, and the best part is that these projects created jobs for local communities.
President Trump’s executive order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” threatens the success of the BIL by curtailing DEIA and environmental justice efforts, particularly the Justice40 initiative, which ensured that 40 percent of federal spending on climate and clean energy programs flowed to disadvantaged communities. The executive order also terminates all environmental justice offices. This means that, for instance, the rural community of Danville, Arkansas may no longer receive the $2.5 million safe room for a tornado shelter it so badly needs (in 2008, a deadly tornado destroyed the area). From increasing diversity in the manufacturing of electric school buses to the creation of a diverse, skilled clean energy workforce, as DEIA programs are dismantled, the country becomes, as an MIT piece warned us, the country of the lost Einsteins.
Looking Forward
The Trump administration faces multiple lawsuits in response to these executive orders. Recently, for instance, the American Association of University Professors filed a lawsuit against the executive orders targeting DEIA initiatives. The lawsuit claims that the administration overstepped its authority by threatening to cut funding for DEIA-related programs. Specifically, the plaintiffs argue that the president cannot unilaterally freeze funding for programs that Congress has already approved. Additionally, the plaintiffs in the lawsuits argue that there is a lack of clarity surrounding which DEIA programs or initiatives are affected by the orders. The plaintiffs argue that the ambiguity has left them unable to fully understand the implications of the directives, thereby infringing upon their Fifth Amendment right to due process.
Given the increasing number of lawsuits and ongoing questions about the president’s legal authority to rescind funding for DEIA programs, universities and workforce organizations should avoid prematurely eliminating these initiatives. The executive orders appear to be intended, at least in part, to intimidate those involved in DEIA work and universities into discontinuing these programs, which is reflected in the vague language of the orders. Universities, in particular, must recognize that bans on DEIA initiatives undermine their fundamental mission: to provide students with a broad understanding of the diverse perspectives and cultures that characterize the world in which they live. While complying with the executive orders may seem like a straightforward solution, dismantling DEIA initiatives would undermine the essential role of universities as places that foster diverse viewpoints and cultural understanding, and would reverse the tremendous progress that both the public and private sectors have made in ensuring that everyone has a fair chance at the livelihood they want and deserve.
Tags: higher education, educational equity, DEIA