This article was originally published in the March 2024 print edition.
One week after the 2025 Presidential Inauguration, the United States Office of Management and Budget issued a directive abruptly suspending federal grants, loans and other financial aid programs. The official explanation? A “temporary pause” to reassess fiscal priorities. Though the freeze was lifted within 24 hours, its purpose was clear: to initiate a sweeping overhaul of public funding, focusing on cutting expenditures linked to so-called “woke” ideologies.
Thus began what the media dubbed the “war on DEI” (diversity, equity and inclusion). Federal agencies have been mandated to dissolve initiatives that engage with “gender ideology” and research grants awarded by the NSF (National Science Foundation) now face politically motivated language restrictions, thereby jeopardizing entire disciplinary fields. More than 2,600 federal programs are currently under review to “ensure they do not advance Marxist equity, transgenderism and Green New Deal social engineering policies.”
Higher education has long been a prime target for right-wing attacks, framed as a breeding ground for “DEI overreach” and the unchecked proliferation of a “progressive agenda.” The Chronicle of Higher Education has tracked the systematic dismantling of DEI offices in universities since April of 2024. Of the 86 campuses that made changes without direct legal mandates, 74 were in states where anti-DEI bills had been introduced but not passed, signaling preemptive compliance with the political climate.
Even in states with no pending legislation, institutions have begun quietly scaling back. The University of California, Los Angeles, rebranded its “Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” as the “Office of Inclusive Excellence,” while the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor eliminated diversity statements from faculty hiring and tenure evaluations.
The attack on DEI is framed as a campaign against administrative excess, a longstanding critique from both the right and segments of the left. On one side, conservatives push the image of a persecuted academic dissenter — students punished for questioning affirmative action, professors denied tenure for refusing to endorse diversity statements and administrators fired for linguistic infractions. On the other, universities are cast as bloated, insular institutions, stockpiling billion-dollar endowments while pushing “radical” ideologies that supposedly alienate the working class.
There is truth to the charge that administrative costs have spiraled as tuition skyrockets, but to equate legitimate concerns about institutional bloat with the current assault on higher education is to misread the moment. This is not about fiscal responsibility or expanding access; it is about restricting the production and circulation of knowledge itself. The dismantling of a DEI office in Michigan is merely the opening act in a broader reconfiguration of the intellectual and academic landscape.
This restructuring of public funding is no accident; it is a deliberate maneuver to transform universities from arenas of academic engagement into mechanistic producers of laborers. Research that does not directly reinforce corporate profitability or military imperatives is being deemed “unnecessary.” This offensive extends beyond mere ideological repression or transformation; it constitutes an economic strategy designed to consolidate wealth and power. The Trump administration’s crusade against DEI is inextricably linked to a broader project of reallocating public funds away from education, research and social infrastructure and redirecting them toward privatized capital accumulation.
Universities that previously invested in social justice research, environmental sustainability and public health now face a choice: align with the prevailing conservative agenda or risk obsolescence. Just as the erosion of social security and the defunding of public healthcare were framed as pragmatic responses to governmental inefficiency, gutting higher education is being framed as a necessary rectification of institutional excess.
The reality, however, is transparent: this is an orchestrated effort to incapacitate public institutions. Faculty members report increased administrative pressure to steer research toward “practical” applications, while students seeking coursework in critical race theory, gender studies or climate science find their options shrinking.
Public universities will absorb the brunt of these reductions. While Ivy League and private universities maintain vast financial endowments capable of sustaining their research and academic freedom, the real concern should be directed toward public institutions, state universities and community colleges. These are the institutions that provide access to education for a larger portion of the population and foster upward mobility. In 2023 alone, UMass Amherst awarded more undergraduate STEM degrees than any other college or university in the Commonwealth, and yet 23% of undergraduate students skipped meals due to financial constraints. UMass Amherst enrolls more first-year students from Massachusetts than do the top eight private universities in Massachusetts (as ranked by U.S. News & World Report) combined.
The defunding of research grants, the elimination of public support for research initiatives and the restriction of state-funded academic programs disproportionately harm these institutions. The fight to preserve academic freedom and intellectual inquiry must focus on protecting these schools, which do not have billion-dollar endowments to cushion financial blows and cannot rely on private funding alone. A thriving, accessible public education system benefits society as a whole, while the privilege of elite universities exacerbates inequality and restricts knowledge to the wealthiest few. If money is needed and excess must be cut, tax the endowments of private institutions, tax Harvard’s property. That’s where the money is — not in public research programs or DEI initiatives.
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