IN LEGISLATIVE CHAMBERS and political talk shows across the country, the debate over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in higher education is treated like a game of abstract philosophy. Policymakers and politicians trade talking points about “institutional neutrality” and “colorblind meritocracy.” But on college campuses, this is not an intellectual, theoretical, or abstract exercise. It is a systematic dismantling of the very systems that are meant to serve as lifelines for students.
On May 15, the American Bar Association council overseeing law school accreditation voted to eliminate its longstanding DEI requirement. This rule requires schools to demonstrate their commitment to diversity in recruitment, admissions, and student programming. Although its enactment has been suspended since February 2025 after President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders, it is further evidence that the national voice for the legal profession understands the need for intentionality in diversifying the future legal workforce. Simultaneously, this federal overreach has sparked a lawsuit by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which condemns these anti-DEI mandates as a direct attack on academic freedom designed to coerce silence. The AAUP warns that these orders force a dangerous ultimatum: higher education institutions must either abandon critical scientific, medical, and ethnic studies research, or forfeit the federal contracts that support their work.
The U.S. Department of Education, once considered a champion for equity, is now keeping a tally of victories in eliminating DEI efforts. They prominently state on their website, “Over 300 colleges and universities have eliminated DEI requirements, closed DEI offices, removed diversity statements from hiring practices, and altered or removed DEI policies.”
As a scholar who has spent over 20 years researching student persistence and institutional structures in higher education, I know that specific programs have an impact and can dictate whether a student successfully navigates to completion, or is overwhelmed by academic demands.
Validating a pathway for marginalized students
Federal programs such as TRIO Student Support Services created to serve low-income, first-generation college students, and individuals with disabilities have been targeted. For the next fiscal year the President’s budget proposal eliminates funding completely. The National Science Foundation’s INCLUDES directorate, literally spelled out (Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science Initiative) was initiated to improve equity and inclusion in STEM by broadening the participation of historically marginalized and underserved populations. This program was terminated. For students — particularly in high-stakes, historically exclusionary fields like STEM, or law — intentional programming is the critical infrastructure that validates their place in the discipline and secures their pathway to a degree.
While these systemic rollbacks are frequently packaged and sold to the public as politically neutral or fiscally responsible measures designed to eliminate administrative overspending and “restore fairness,” they mask a deeply damaging reality: these political strategies inflict direct, material harm on the students who rely on institutions of higher education to realize their academic and professional aspirations.
When you eliminate the infrastructure, programming, staff and funding dedicated to these critical programs, you do not create a neutral playing field; you are actively withdrawing opportunity
By tearing down equity infrastructure, these policies disproportionately strip underrepresented students and other marginalized groups of the foundational pillars of academic success: mentoring, undergraduate research opportunities, and vital advocacy.
When you eliminate the infrastructure, programming, staff and funding dedicated to these critical programs, you do not create a neutral playing field; you are actively withdrawing opportunity. Decades of educational research confirm that student persistence and a developed sense of belonging in exclusionary fields are directly dictated by institutional policies, stable funding structures, and institutional agents who center advocacy in their work.
Far from being “unnecessary,” equity initiatives are verified, practical lifelines. For students navigating high-stakes fields, specialized mentoring networks and paid research opportunities are the essential structural elements that allow their inherent academic potential and talent to fully thrive, cultivate belonging, and culminate in graduation.
Nothing neutral about inequity
Critics of DEI contend that eliminating these programs is necessary to ensure that public funds are not weaponized for political agendas. They argue that specialized offices fragment campus unity and that universities should focus strictly on “colorblind” (race-evasive), generalized student support that treats everyone the same.
But there is nothing colorblind or neutral about an educational system that perpetuates inequity. Leaving historically marginalized students to navigate predominately white institutions without advocacy is not a meritocracy — it is an abandonment of institutional responsibility.
True institutional leadership requires standing up and showing up for your students. It is time to demand that university administrators stop preemptively sacrificing DEI programs to shield themselves from political discomfort. Admission and enrollment come with a non-negotiable promise of serving student needs.
We must shift the narrative from abstract debate to absolute demand: stop managing political fear on the backs of student futures, stop retreating, and serve the students who are already sitting in your classrooms. DEI is not a luxury item to be bartered away for administrative safety. Stop folding before the fight has even begun. Hold the line, fund the work, and keep your promise.
About the author
Lucy Arellano Jr. is associate dean and an associate professor of higher education at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Public Voices Fellow with The OpEd Project at UCSB.