Without merit? One year since DEI crackdown letter chilled academia — where are we now?

FEB. 14 ISN’T JUST VALENTINE’S DAY for me. It is the celebration of when I became “woke” and started focusing my research on what factors empower racialized minorities’ successes in entrepreneurship. Why Valentine’s Day? It’s not because it’s a labor of love, but it is a direct reaction to the “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) distributed by the U.S. Department of Education on Feb. 14, 2025, that threatened the immediate withdrawal of federal funding for any educational institution that failed to eliminate race-based preferences from all aspects of campus life, including admissions, hiring, financial aid, and DEI programs.

When the DCL came out in 2025, many universities capitulated to these threats including Columbia, the University of North Carolina, and my own institution where I am on the faculty of the business school. The Chronicle of Higher Education began tracking “Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI” finding changes at 437 campuses across the United States. Other universities, such as Harvard and the California State University system, stood up against the decree by issuing their own letters stating that the ED lacked the authority to redefine Title VI. In response to the DCL, CSU Chancellor Mildred Garcia communicated to campus communities, “It is important to note that the CSU’s programs and services are open to all — we are an inclusive institution, not an exclusive one. That is in our DNA.”