The U.S. Department of Education has warned that it may withdraw federal funding from private universities, including Stanford, unless they dismantle “race-based practices”—a move that targets Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
At Stanford, the potential implications are sweeping. Cultural and ethnic studies programs, race-affiliated student housing, and race-conscious admissions policies may all come under scrutiny. The announcement has sparked mixed reactions and heated debate across campus.
The ED based their order on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ruled that the use of racial preferences in college admissions is unlawful. Now, the ED is extending the ruling to apply to policies beyond the admissions process.
A Feb. 14 letter to universities ordered the removal of DEI programs, stating that “treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”
Paula Moya, the director of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity (CCSRE), wrote in an email to The Daily that “being able to teach and research about race and ethnicity is a matter of academic freedom, a long-established principle that scholars, researchers, and educators can engage in teaching and scholarship about a wide variety of matters without the fear of censorship or retribution.”
CCSRE also published a statement “reject[ing] the fallacious logic” of the Department of Education’s letter.
Emma Muller ’28 feels that the Trump administration’s policies have created a lot of fear on campus. She hopes that the university will not remove its support systems for students, and referred to the scrubbing of Stanford DEI websites last February.
“For these websites to even just start being taken down, I think it reflects an even broader threat to a lot of those support systems being removed,” Muller said. “As a university that is committed to having diversity, Stanford should really take that into account and try to provide the support for students who have different experiences because of their race or because of their different identities.”
Not all students support DEI. In regards to college admissions, a third-year student, who requested anonymity due to fears of professional and academic retaliation, said, “I think it’s great that we have students from a variety of places, but I think that it’s important that Stanford doesn’t water down its student base for diversity.”
The third-year student acknowledges that DEI is meant to foster inclusion, but thinks it doesn’t encompass every perspective.
DEI is “a way of lowering standards for certain people,” she said. She believes that it leads colleges to admit people who are “not prepared for the program you’re bringing them to,” at the expense of people who could thrive in something as rigorous as medical school, for example.
She also said that rural white students could be disadvantaged by DEI policies because of their race.
Muller sees this as one of the many existing misconceptions about DEI. “There is a lot of data to show that students who are of different races and identities have very different experiences from students who don’t share that [identity], because there are certain structures and certain institutions in this nation that create different disparities, and you see that on so many levels.”
Muller added that diversity doesn’t just mean race or gender, but different life experiences. “It could mean the city you live in,” she said. “It means so many different things.”
On the other hand, the third-year student wants to prioritize picking the most qualified people for college admissions or jobs over someone for their identity. “If we want society to function the best, it’s necessary to have competent people,” she said. “If we have the option to pick the most competent people, that’s the most fair.”
Andrew Mancini ’25 was “disappointed” to hear the ED’s attacks on DEI. He views DEI as “the idea of including other voices and recognizing that everyone comes from different backgrounds.”
However, he thinks that there is no concrete understanding of what DEI means to the administration. As an example, he referred to the confirmation hearing of Education Secretary Linda McMahon, in which she said that it would be acceptable to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but gave more guarded answers regarding how to teach Black history.
Mancini believes in studying a country’s role in slavery but thinks that it is “extreme” to blame white people today for what past generations have done. However, he does not see this as DEI’s mission, and attributes hate of DEI to increasing polarization.
“I don’t think that’s what DEI really looks like. I think that’s maybe Republicans trying to turn it into something people hate by taking [DEI] to a very far extreme,” he said.
The third-year student wanted to clarify her comments on DEI. “I’m not coming from a place of hate or because I dislike people,” she said. “I think that you should put in the work to succeed instead of having to rely on your background. You shouldn’t have to play the race card of ‘oh I’m so underprivileged.’ If you work hard, you should be able to succeed.”
She also thinks that instead of having affirmative action, there should be efforts to try to increase the number of qualified applicants from minority backgrounds.
Mancini is curious to see if the ED will follow through on its threats and what programs they will actually determine to be against their anti-DEI policies. “Where do you draw the line?” Mancini asked. “Who even knows how to define DEI?”