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Strap in—today’s update is dense.
As I’ve said before, “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) isn’t going anywhere. But the latest news is that the Trump administration is swinging its axe at all federal DEI initiatives.
Kali Jerrard wrote this week that the Department of Education (ED) has already dismantled its Diversity and Inclusion Council, shelved DEI training contracts, and placed DEI staff on administrative leave.
Peter Wood, President of the National Association of Scholars (NAS), welcomes Trump’s executive orders that made the ED’s DEI initiatives possible, seeing it as a necessary step in dismantling decades of policies that have corrupted academia by institutionalizing race and sex discrimination under the guise of promoting diversity. Wood also noted that ending DEI is essential not only for civil rights but also for the preservation of intellectual freedom and the purity of scholarly inquiry.
“NAS’s agenda is broader than advocating for an end to higher education’s persistent violations of civil rights. We stand for liberal education that fosters intellectual freedom, the search for truth, and the promotion of virtuous citizenship,” he wrote.
Still, some universities will undoubtedly cling to race-based policies. That much was made clear in CU Boulder’s public records, which revealed that academic departments openly favored black, Indigenous, and people of color candidates in exchange for funding. “The receipts are pretty astonishing,” John Sailer, who collected the records along with Louis Galarowicz, said on X.
Minding the Campus has also explored the continued use of race-based admissions policies at the nation’s military academies. Despite the Supreme Court’s decision in SFFA v. Harvard, which rightly rejected racial preferences in college admissions, institutions like West Point, the Air Force Academy, and the Naval Academy persist with such policies. Notably, footnote four of the Court’s majority opinion left open the possibility for race-based admissions at military academies, saying that these institutions may have distinct interests. This potential exception has been tested in the case of Students for Fair Admissions v. The United States Naval Academy, where a U.S. District Court upheld race-conscious admissions on the grounds of national security concerns.
[RELATED: Bootstraps and Bedlam Take Over Higher Ed]
But William A. Woodruff and R. Lawrence Purdy argue persuasively that the decision not only contradicts the principle established in SFFA v. Harvard but that the district court improperly deferred to the Biden administration’s justification for racial preferences—namely, that racial diversity in the officer corps is a national security necessity—without applying the strict scrutiny required by law.
Purdy asserts that there’s no proven link between national security and racial diversity in the officer corps and that the notion of America as an “endemically segregated society” perpetuates racial discrimination rather than remedying it. Woodruff further argues that the court misapplied strict scrutiny by accepting military leaders’ claims without demanding credible, objective evidence. He notes that by rubber-stamping the Navy’s justification, the court repeated the same flawed reasoning that led to Korematsu, the infamous 1944 decision that upheld Japanese internment during World War II.
I agree with Woodruff and Purdy. At the same time, all that legalese only reinforces my belief that courts conjure rulings out of thin air.
But where federal courts are lacking, states seem to be picking up the slack. In Ohio, an unexpected wave of higher education reforms is underway. Senate Bill 1, championed by state senator Jerry Cirino, is poised to significantly reshape Ohio’s public universities, with strong backing from both the Ohio Senate and House and Governor Mike DeWine, as reported by Richard Vedder in this week’s top article. The bill is aimed at countering the influence of progressive agendas in academia and restoring public trust in universities.
Key provisions include the establishment of five civic institutes at public universities, which focus on promoting the nation’s founding principles and the abolition of DEI programs. Additionally, the bill mandates the teaching of American history and civics, prohibits faculty strikes, enforces institutional neutrality, and introduces meaningful post-tenure reviews. These reforms signal a bold move to shift Ohio’s higher education landscape away from left-leaning ideologies, making it a model for similar initiatives across the country.
Whether we’ll see further challenges to racial preference and DEI in other parts of the country remains to be seen—I suspect we will. But for now, we should take a moment to appreciate that internal reforms to restore merit-based hiring and academic integrity are off to a strong start.
Equally newsworthy—though seemingly collecting dust on the internet—is Albright College’s decision to borrow up to $25 million from its endowment—nearly half of its total endowment. The move is yet another sign of how campuses will handle the enrollment decline we’ve been covering at Minding the Campus.
As enrollment continues to dwindle, I wondered whether more colleges will resort to similar tactics to stay afloat.
Andrew Gillen, a research fellow at the Cato Institute and Minding the Campus contributor, told me, “I’m not sure if other colleges will do this too, but this is certainly not a good sign for Albright.”
“Rightly or wrongly, dipping into the endowment principal is strenuously avoided, so the fact that they are doing this is the equivalent of eating their seed corn or raiding the kids college fund—not something you’d do unless you were backed into a corner.” Gillen continued. “I said rightly or wrongly because it’s not clear to me why colleges should seek to amass tens of billions in endowment that they can’t touch, but that’s how higher ed has done things thus far.”
My view: Even if Albright weren’t struggling financially, it should have been using its endowment all along. Universities exist to educate students, not hoard wealth. If the goal is an educated public, tapping into these massive funds could have offset soaring tuition costs—one of the driving factors behind the enrollment cliff. Perhaps if Albright—or any university—had used its endowment responsibly to lower tuition, it wouldn’t be scrambling for funds or students now.
In 2022, Senator Rick Scott introduced the COLLEGE Act to enforce this very principle.
The bill would have required universities with large endowments to cover a portion of tuition costs—25 percent for those with $1 billion to $5 billion, 50 percent for those with $5 billion to $10 billion, and 75 percent for those exceeding $10 billion. Unfortunately, it didn’t pass.
Still, Albright’s move may be a harbinger of things to come. Alongside Americans not attending college, foreign student enrollment is also expected to drop as Trump is likely to impose restrictions on work visas—the primary incentive for many foreign nationals to study in the United States.
Without a guaranteed path to U.S. employment post-graduation—compounded by leftist fear-mongering over Trump’s treatment of foreign nationals—many would-be foreign students may opt to stay home.
For me, this is a welcome shift.
As I’ve noted before, universities have relied on foreign nationals to fill classroom seats at the highest bidder. Campuses should be prioritizing opportunities for American students. And if losing out on foreign student tuition dollars forces schools to dig into their endowments, so be it.
[RELATED: Higher Education Fuels Corporate Profits at the Expense of American Workers]
It wouldn’t be right to wrap this up without touching on just a few more items, such as the manufactured panic over Trump’s federal grant freeze—which now appears to have been rescinded.
Contrary to alarmist reports, it didn’t freeze Pell Grants or student loans. It targeted federal funds supporting DEI, radical gender ideology, and foreign projects. Some claim that so-called minority-serving institutions would have been affected as well. But, I say again, so be it—no institution should receive federal funding based on race, even if it’s rebranding it as “minority-serving.”
Reformers should also stay tuned for a confirmation hearing date for Linda McMahon, who is expected to lead the Department of Education. Sources say a date has yet to be set, but one should be set soon.
We’ve covered McMahon at Minding the Campus, but in short, she has backed the Trump agenda since at least 2017 and has championed pragmatic, skills-based education during her time at the America First Policy Institute.
Her leadership could mean cutting red tape and further dismantling DEI. Additionally, some observers, myself included, wonder what aligning education more closely with workforce needs will look like; if this will transform colleges and universities into job-training centers. It’s an interesting topic I plan to explore in a forthcoming essay.
And speaking of forthcoming essays, I’m still compiling information on illegal students. Since last week’s “Illegal Immigration U,” where I exposed how colleges and universities aid and abet illegal migrants, my inbox has been flooded with more details on the issue. Expect more reporting on that soon.
You can unbuckle now; the ride’s over.
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