FIRE
Excerpt: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of an LGBTQ+ student organization to block a new policy from the Texas A&M University System that bans drag performances on its 11 public campuses — a clear violation of the First Amendment.
Spencer S. Hsu and Dan Rosenzweig-Ziff
Washington Post
Excerpt: Interim D.C. U.S. Attorney Ed Martin demanded that the dean of Georgetown Law School end all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts at the school, asserting in a letter that his office will not consider hiring anyone affiliated with a university that utilizes DEI.
Eliana Johnson
Washington Free Beacon
Excerpt: A research scholar at Yale Law School also moonlights as a member of a U.S.-sanctioned terrorist fundraising entity, according to web postings reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
The Editorial Board
Wall Street Journal
Excerpt: Justice Clarence Thomas filed a peppy dissent, but the Supreme Court was otherwise silent and cryptic on Monday in declining to hear a challenge to Indiana University’s “bias response team.” As a result, the circuit courts will stay split, since lower judges are divided on whether such campus bodies chill student expression. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals said no in Speech First v. Whitten.
Jaweed Kaleem
LA Times
Excerpt: After the Trump administration told schools to dismantle diversity, equity and inclusion programs or face federal funding cuts, USC has deleted the website for its university wide Office of Inclusion and Diversity and merged it into another operation, scrubbed several college and department-level DEI statements, renamed faculty positions and, in one case, removed online references to a scholarship for Black and Indigenous students.
The University of Southern California’s actions — similar to some other universities throughout the country — appear to be aimed at avoiding federal scrutiny, according to USC faculty and staff and reviews of portions of the USC website archives.
Conor Friedersdorf
The Atlantic
Excerpt: On President Donald Trump’s first day back in the White House, he issued an executive order ending diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government. Its sweeping language forbids DEI “mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities,” and orders the termination of all DEI positions—hundreds if not thousands of roles. Trump and his allies are also trying to curtail DEI in corporations that contract with the state, colleges that get federal funds, and more.
The ambition of these anti-DEI efforts mirrors the earlier, heavy-handed push, including by the Biden administration, to embed DEI practices into almost all of America’s most important institutions. It also underscores just how widely and variably the term DEI is now used across society.