ANALYSIS

The Trump administration has apparently thrown in the towel — for now — on its effort to ban diversity, equity and inclusion in schools and universities by way of edict and the threat of yanking federal funding.

Lawyers for the U.S. Department of Education on Wednesday officially withdrew their appeal of a federal court ruling from last August that had blocked enforcement of Trump’s one-year-old “Dear Colleague letter” banning DEI programs as discriminatory.

Citing the 2023 Supreme Court decision banning affirmative action, the February 2025 letter had stated federal law also “prohibits covered entities from using race in decisions pertaining to admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

But an August 2025 ruling by U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher found that the administration’s “Dear Colleague” letter was too vague, violated the First Amendment, and failed to follow proper federal administrative “notice and comment” procedures.

She wrote: “The government did not merely remind educators that discrimination is illegal: it initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished.”

And that seems to be exactly what happened. As one professor told the Los Angeles Times last week regarding the Trump team’s legal withdrawal, “the damage is done” regarding how universities rolled back many different DEI programs and policies.

“For at least dozens of college campuses across the nation, websites have been purged of mentions of DEI or diversity, DEI-related positions have been eliminated or changed, or students have lost access to culturally themed dorms focused on Black, Latino and LGBTQ+ students,” the Times reported.

However, a lot of the DEI rollback was window dressing and linguistic gymnastics, as The College Fix reported in June 2025.

While many universities did close their DEI offices, a large chunk opted to rename or revamp them, but kept a lot of the same employees and goals. In some cases, there were some staff reassignments and other bureaucratic shuffling, such as integration into other departments.

Moreover, private schools and universities in blue states were less cooperative. At the University of California and California State University, for example, “campuses were more resistant,” the Times reported.

“Officials said they followed Prop. 209, a 1997 law that banned the consideration of race in state college admissions. They said they believed other efforts — such as cultural centers and living-learning dorm floors that appealed to Latino and Black communities but were not exclusive to them — were legal.”

As for the Trump administration’s apparent surrender, some believe it was more of a tactical retreat to prevent a higher court from issuing a sweeping precedent that could permanently limit how the president can use the threat of yanking federal funding to influence policy.

The administration has also focused its efforts on launching specific civil rights investigations into alleged discrimination at high-profile universities to force them to roll back DEI on a case-by-case basis.

MORE: Nearly 90 universities have rebranded their DEI offices, College Fix survey finds