Stanford has significantly reduced the content on its Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access in a Learning Environment (IDEAL) and DiversityWorks websites — which featured information describing and supporting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts — since January.

The changes come amid a series of executive orders by President Donald Trump targeting DEI initiatives across government, education and business. University president Jonathan Levin ’94 said at a Faculty Senate meeting last month that the University would “need to review programs on campus that fall under the DEI heading,” and that some would likely “need to be modified” in response to Trump’s orders.

On Jan. 13, the University’s “About” web page contained a section outlining “deep respect for diversity in all its forms.” The page stated that the University “seeks to provide all students with the opportunity and tools to build community and connection across the racial, socioeconomic, geographical, and political lines that often present barriers to greater understanding.” The content has since disappeared from the statement on the “About” page.

The University’s IDEAL initiatives, which debuted in 2018, have the stated goals of ensuring that “diversity of thought, experience, and approach is represented” and “all members of the campus community have broad access to the opportunities and benefits of Stanford.”

After a 2021 IDEAL survey revealed that nearly 40% of 15,000 respondents had experienced “microaggression, discriminatory behaviors [or] harassing behaviors,” the University reaffirmed its commitment to diversity and outlined DEI advancement goals in its 2023 IDEAL strategic plan.

“It’s really seen as the North Star for us,” Patrick Dunkley, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity, Access and Community, told The Daily in 2023 following the release of the IDEAL strategic plan. “It’s our guiding principles for inclusion, diversity, equity and access in our campus.”

The last digital archive capture of the IDEAL website — based on the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization that provides access to former versions of websites — was on Dec. 28, 2024. Since then, links to the IDEAL strategic plan, recent IDEAL accomplishments and a dashboard showing the composition of Stanford’s community since 2010 have been removed, as well as a section on the initiative’s latest updates and two videos highlighting “the importance of diversity” and “Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access in a Learning Community.”

The Daily reached out to the University for comment about the changes to the web pages.

The University has also stripped its DiversityWorks website, which celebrates diversity as “a core value at Stanford,” taking down the faculty member spotlight section, information on upcoming diversity events and a “People Spotlights” section since the last archive capture on Jan. 1. 

Brett Han ’27 and Abhi Boda ’27, representatives of Stanford’s Asian American Students’ Association (AASA), said that the University’s changes to DEI information on web pages have not affected student organizations promoting diversity.

“For now, and for the future, AASA remains a VSO, remains active on campus, and continues to put on the events that we have been executing for decades,” Han said.

Karina Gonzalez ’27, a student staff member at El Centro Chicano y Latino, learned about the changes to the IDEAL website from a friend. She said she was shocked to see the changes, describing them as a “very tough blow.”

“You see… so many news reports that there are going to be attacks to DEI, but seeing it on your own campus, I think just made it feel so much more real,” Gonzalez said. “It just felt like a dent almost in my life.”

The online changes echo those at the Department of Education, which released a press statement on Jan. 23 announcing that, “in line with President Trump’s ongoing commitment to end illegal discrimination,” the Department had removed “hundreds of guidance documents, reports, and training materials that include mentions of DEI” and placed “employees charged with leading DEI initiatives on paid administrative leave.” 

The Department of Education also announced the “cancellation of ongoing DEI training and service contracts which total over $2.6 million” and the planned “removal of over 200 web pages from the Department’s website that housed DEI resources and encouraged schools and institutions of higher education to promote or endorse harmful ideological programs.”

University spokesperson Luisa Rapport declined to comment on the Trump administration’s effects on University DEI initiatives or the removal of DEI information from University web pages, but directed The Daily to Provost Jenny Martinez’s address on DEI issues at the Feb. 6 Faculty Senate meeting.

“We do think that the excellence of our research and teaching missions are advanced by having people with different backgrounds,” Martinez said at the meeting. “We want an environment where everyone at Stanford, regardless of background, is treated with respect [and] feels like they are a full participant in our community.”

Martinez did not name specific strategies in place to respond to Trump’s recent executive orders. “At the moment, we don’t have a lot of detailed information about what some of the executive orders in this space mean,” she said. “As we approach review of programs and policies on campus and implement any changes, we’re going to be guided by the values and mission of the University.”

Comparative literature professor David Palumbo-Liu saw a connection between the changes to the IDEAL website and the Trump administration’s orders. In an email to The Daily, he described the IDEAL program as “immensely valuable” to Stanford, adding that he was glad to hear Martinez reaffirm the University’s intent to stay true to “Stanford’s core values” at the Faculty Senate meeting. 

“I vastly prefer the goals of such initiatives to those of the violent social engineering that was at the core of slavery and the ongoing forms of real discrimination that have maintained power in essentially the same hands for centuries,” he wrote to The Daily. 

Palumbo-Liu added that the University should aim to protect its educational mission and those who will be most impacted by “authoritarian directives” under the Trump administration. 

“It’s crucial to remember that we are a community of scholars, researchers, students, staff and workers who in our everyday lives can perfectly well practice mutual respect and care towards everyone, no matter what their identity or status,” he wrote. “Trump directives cannot do anything about that.”

For Gonzalez, a first-generation student and a person of color, DEI initiatives held both practical and symbolic importance. 

“There’s not many of us, but we do exist,” she said, referring to first-generation and low-income students. “And I think having access to this information is a sense of power, and it’s a sense of being able to recognize that we do exist on campus.”

Gonzalez expressed concern that, amid shifts in the political climate and the University, opportunities could be lost for students like her to explore their identities and barriers they had overcome. Gonzalez added that political debate on DEI has increased her motivation to work at El Centro and promote its mission. 

“It means a lot to be represented, and to see representation,” Gonzalez said. “I think the fact that [whether representation should occur] is becoming a topic of conversation again, it is really disheartening.”