Two weeks after the Department of Education’s deadline to end race-based initiatives at federally-funded institutions, Lafayette College appears to have remained steadfast in its programs.
The college’s young Division of Inclusion remains intact, and no edits have been made to Lafayette’s primary diversity webpage. Multiple student leaders in race-based organizations told The Lafayette they had not heard from the administration about any changes.
“The College will always be a welcoming place where everyone is treated with dignity and respect while complying with all applicable laws and regulations,” college spokesman Scott Morse wrote in an email. Morse declined to answer any specific questions.
Lafayette’s general counsel, Tim Cedrone, declined to comment, deferring to Morse.
A Feb. 14 letter from the Department of Education outlined a broader interpretation of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling against affirmative action, warning schools to cut race-based initiatives from all “aspects of student, academic, and campus life” or risk losing federal funding. Across the nation, higher education institutions have scrubbed diversity webpages and internally reorganized to comply.
But Lafayette is not alone in its apparent inaction.
Representatives from four of Lafayette’s peer schools — Bucknell University, Grinnell College, Hamilton College and Union College — confirmed that no organizational changes have been made as a result of the Department of Education’s letter. The president of Carleton College, another of Lafayette’s peers, called the letter “an effort to intimidate colleges” in a February interview with Minnesota Public Radio.
“I think it’s trying to get colleges to make changes, and I certainly think that if a time comes that we’re legally required to make changes, we will look at it differently,” said Carleton President Alison Byerly, a former Lafayette College president. “But right now, it’s not clear that what’s outlined in the letter has the force of law.”
Carleton’s Division of Communication deferred comment to the interview.
An FAQ released by the Department of Education on Feb. 28 clarified that not all diversity, equity and inclusion programs were necessarily in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws.
“Schools may not operate policies or programs under any name that treat students differently based on race, engage in racial stereotyping, or create hostile environments for students of particular races,” the document reads.
The document also acknowledges that programs focused on particular cultures and heritages “would not in and of themselves violate Title VI, assuming they are open to all students regardless of race,” as well as cultural and historical observances, like Black History Month or International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
In the weeks after the letter was released, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University both quietly deleted diversity-related webpages, and the University of Southern California dissolved its Office of Inclusion and Diversity, integrating it into a broader “Culture Team.” The University of Iowa scrapped its LGBTQ+, Latino and Black-experience living-learning communities.
The changes come amid a higher education crackdown by the Trump administration. The administration recently canceled $400 million in federal funding to Columbia University over what it called “inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students.” It separately warned it and 59 other schools, including Lafayette, that federal funding is “contingent on scrupulous adherence to federal antidiscrimination laws.”
