Since the start of his second term, President Donald Trump has cracked down on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives from the halls of federal government agencies to K-12 schools.
But the changes quickly reached the walls of classrooms at universities across the country.
Trump signed a presidential action on his first day in office ending DEI initiatives in the federal government, calling the programs “illegal and immoral.” He has since signed orders terminating equity-related grants and contracts that contain equity-related language, canceling federal contracts with higher education institutions over DEI initiatives and repealing equal employment opportunity guidelines.
Universities across the country – including the University of Michigan, the University of Virginia and the University of Southern California – have dismantled, renamed or modified diversity-related programs since early 2025.
The UC removed diversity statements in its hiring processes in March 2025, about a month after the then-acting assistant secretary of education for civil rights said in a letter that the department would withhold federal funding from universities that he alleged used the guise of diversity programs to discriminate. The University also replaced its Department of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion with the Office of Culture and Inclusive Excellence in October.
The UC Office of the President said in an emailed statement that the University never had systemwide requirements for diversity statements, although some programs and departments used them. The UC Board of Regents directed the University to remove any required standalone diversity statements for new hires, the spokesperson added in the statement.
“All of our campuses remain committed to legally compliant strategies that strengthen faculty recruitment, development and retention across the system,” a UCOP spokesperson said in a written statement. “We conduct all of our activities lawfully and in compliance with federal and state requirements, as well as University policies.”
UCOP also said its decision to replace its EDI department did not stem from any federal actions, adding that planning for it began in 2024.
The Department of Education named the UC and UCLA as “prominent examples” of eliminating DEI in an April 6 press release.
UCOP did not respond to a question about the Department of Education’s April press release.
At UCLA, changes to DEI began before the second Trump administration. The university announced in October 2024 that it would replace its Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion with the Office of Inclusive Excellence.
Mitchell Chang, a professor of education who served as the interim vice provost for EDI until June 2025, said the move to replace the department came in response to the office’s heavy workload. The office dealt with complaints related to federal discrimination laws, as well as general discrimination-focused complaints from students and faculty, he said.
“We were getting better at doing the correction and addressing the discrimination and the complaints reported to us,” he said. “But preventing further discrimination was a smaller piece of what the office was doing, and the university wanted to see more of that work being done.”
Chang said the work of UCLA’s EDI office was primarily split up between the new Office of Inclusive Excellence and UCLA Compliance. Then-Interim Chancellor Darnell Hunt said in an October 2024 statement that UCLA’s Office of Civil Rights would be transitioned from the EDI Office into UCLA’s Compliance Office while the EDI office’s campus climate-focused functions would be transitioned into the Office of Inclusive Excellence.
But some changes to diversity-related programs at UCLA have followed the start of the second Trump administration.
UCLA’s Diversity Admit Weekend Program instructed student-run admit weekends to remove words considered “exclusive” from their names in April 2025 and stopped providing the programs with lists of admitted students who came from an admit weekend’s identity group, leaders said. UCLA campus attorneys advised staff to remove language on websites that could appear targeted toward specific identity groups in early 2025.
[Related: UCLA staff advised to remove targeted website language amid Trump’s DEI crackdown]
It can be difficult to distinguish which changes came in response to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI efforts as opposed to financial struggles, said Sylvia Hurtado, who advises Chancellor Julio Frenk and previously served as an adviser to former Chancellor Gene Block. Chang, however, said he believes these changes have largely been a form of preemptive compliance.
He added that while in his administrative role, UCLA’s EDI office avoided making preemptive changes to its practices in response to potential external threats. However, he added that he believes the Trump administration’s attacks and threats have made that approach impossible.
“That strategy has changed, and it’s changed in part because the federal government has way more leverage and decided to withhold research funding,” he said. “By taking the stance of not doing any preemptive compliance, we’re at risk of losing all this billion dollars or more of research funding.”
Other changes to UCLA’s diversity-related efforts have included changes to UCLA’s identity-specific graduation events. The office of Student Organizations, Leadership & Engagement instructed student-run organizations hosting these graduation events to change their names.
[Related: UCLA students celebrate identity-based graduations despite growing DEI scrutiny]
Budget cuts to UCLA’s Division of Undergraduate Education led to the Academic Advancement Program – which supports students from underrepresented backgrounds – pausing some of its initiatives and laying off staff in July 2025. Funding reductions have impacted other UCLA programs during the 2025-26 academic year, including its math department and student tour guides.
[Related: “A Perfect Storm”: How Budget Cuts Have Impacted UCLA]
Cuts to AAP in particular have increased workloads for student-initiated retention programs, said Sherry Zhou, who served as the 2025-26 Undergraduate Students Association Council external vice president.
Zhou said she wants UCLA’s administration to consult more with students – particularly those working in student support programs – when making decisions that could impact diversity-related programs.
“It’s (DEI is) about making sure that all students feel supported,” she said. “We see that very clearly at UCLA because all of these initiatives. They are open to everyone, and they’re about making sure that students … feel like they have every resource at their fingertips in all the communities they need at their fingertips in order to feel successful and at home at UCLA.”
Chang said he believes stepping away from DEI means deprioritizing the needs of underrepresented students.
“These efforts were meant to provide space, provide a voice, allow certain people that are usually invisible to be seen, and now you eliminate that – what happens now?” he said. “Now those people are invisible. Now those issues are invisible.”
After the Trump administration suspended $584 million in UCLA’s research funding in late July, it sent the university a proposed settlement demanding UCLA end its race and ethnicity-based scholarships. The federal government alleged that the university had illegally used affirmative action, allowed antisemitism and permitted “men to participate in women’s sports” as reasons for the cuts.
Hurtado, a distinguished professor of education, said she believes this proposal was an attempt to exclude students of color from higher education.
“The scholarships, first of all, do not award race – they award merit,” she said. “They’re all highly competitive.”
Chang said he believes UCLA administrators have shown strong leadership amid attacks from the Trump administration. Hurtado also said UC President James Milliken strongly supports access to the University and its research mission – qualities she believes are necessary for a leader.
While Chang said the University has been cautious in how it approaches diversity under the Trump administration, he hopes it continues to support civil rights reports, which give community members the ability to disclose violations of federal discrimination law at colleges.
Hurtado said changes to DEI at the UC have made her concerned about academic freedom going forward. However, she added that she understands why lawyers across the University may be cautious about actions the Trump administration is critical of.
Hurtado said she believes the UC has a responsibility to continue to study and support diverse populations – and hopes the University will follow through on it.
“Our mission is to develop talent in every quarter of the state and nation, and we do it by a variety of ways – researching areas that are going to be important for diverse communities, learning more about both our past and also what can be done in the future,” she said.
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