On Valentine’s Day, love was everywhere except for the U.S. Department of Education (DOE).
On Friday, February 14, 2025, Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary for the DOE’s Office of Civil Rights, sent a warning letter to universities and colleges implementing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and programs for students. Furthermore, the letter decries universities and colleges that “indoctrinate” students with the “false premise” that “the United States is built upon systemic and structural racism.”
“In recent years, American educational institutions have discriminated against students on the basis of race, including white and Asian students, many of whom come from disadvantaged backgrounds and low-income families. These institutions’ embrace of pervasive and repugnant race-based preferences and other forms of racial discrimination have emanated throughout every facet of academia,” the letter reads. “For example, colleges, universities, and K-12 schools have routinely used race as a factor in admissions, financial aid, hiring, training, and other institutional programming. In a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history, many American schools and universities even encourage segregation by race at graduation ceremonies and in dormitories and other facilities.”
Trainor’s letter builds upon the landmark Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. (SFFA) v. President & Fellows of Harvard College (Harvard) and SFFA v. University of North Carolina (UNC), Nos. 20-1199 & 21-707. In June 2023, the Supreme Court determined Harvard and UNC’s admissions process, which accounts for race and other elements of identity, violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As a result, affirmative action was effectively thwarted in many ways.
Nearly two years later, Donald Trump began his second term as President and immediately signed several executive orders, including “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.” With this executive order, Trump sought to “coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI.”
“The Biden Administration forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs, going by the name ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ (DEI), into virtually all aspects of the Federal Government, in areas ranging from airline safety to the military. This was a concerted effort stemming from President Biden’s first day in office, when he issued Executive Order 13985, ‘Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,'” the executive order states. “Pursuant to Executive Order 13985 and follow-on orders, nearly every Federal agency and entity submitted ‘Equity Action Plans’ to detail the ways that they have furthered DEIs infiltration of the Federal Government. The public release of these plans demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination. That ends today. Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great.”
In response, the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore filed a lawsuit to “block Trump’s unlawful and unconstitutional DEI executive orders, which threaten academic freedom and access to higher education for all.”
“In the United States, there is no king,” the lawsuit states. “The President can exercise only those powers the Constitution grants to the executive, and only in ways that do not violate the rights the Constitution grants to the American people. In his crusade to erase diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility from our country, President Trump cannot usurp Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, nor can he silence those who disagree with him by threatening them with the loss of federal funds and other enforcement actions.”
