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President Donald Trump issued an executive order late Tuesday night challenging diversity, equity, and inclusion programming at colleges and universities in the U.S. in the latest blow to Harvard’s administration.
Trump’s order, which comes one day after his inauguration, requires all executive agencies and federally funded educational institutions — including Harvard — to terminate any race or gender-based diversity programs that could be in violation of federal civil rights laws.
“Institutions of higher education have adopted and actively use dangerous, demeaning, and immoral race- and sex-based preferences under the guise of so-called ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion,’” Trump wrote in the order.
In the order, Trump directed all federal agencies to each identify up to nine corporations, large non-profit groups, or institutions of higher education with endowments exceeding $1 billion whose diversity policies violated civil rights laws — a list that Harvard will likely be a target for given its $53 billion endowment and diversity office that employs more than a dozen people.
Each of Harvard’s units maintains a school-level office for equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
Trump’s order is focused on developing an action plan against DEI programs that enable “illegal discrimination or preferences” under civil rights legislation. In the executive order, Trump wrote that DEI initiatives and policies “not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity.”
The order asked Attorney General Pamela J. Bondi to consider federal litigation and regulatory action to rein in DEI programs at companies and universities.
A Harvard spokesperson could not be reached for comment late Tuesday night.
Trump also directed Bondi and Secretary of Education Linda M. McMahon to issue guidance within 120 days to all state and local educational agencies on how to abide by the 2023 Supreme Court ruling that struck down race-based affirmative action policies.
The order is part of a broad crusade against diversity and equity-based policies in both the public and private sector. Just hours earlier, the Trump administration issued a directive to all government agencies to put all employees in DEI-related positions on paid leave and close all DEI offices.
The directive aimed at universities repealed five presidential orders issued by Trump’s predecessors, including those focused on environmental justice and diversity in the federal government.
The order does not prevent institutions of higher education from discussing issues related to race and gender, and it does not prohibit faculty from teaching about diversity as long as the content is part of academic coursework.
During the campaign, Trump promised an aggressive agenda against elite educational institutions, most notably threatening Harvard with a hike to its endowment tax and cuts to its federal funding. Harvard, in turn, hired Ballard Partners, a firm with ties to several of Trump’s current and former advisors — a group the University may increasingly lean on to navigate the fallout from the administration’s new measures.
Just one day into his presidency, Trump’s immediate challenge to diversity initiatives across college campuses is likely the beginning of a wave of new policies Harvard and its lobbying arm will have to fight.
—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.
—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.
