As a Feb. 28 deadline to end diversity programs came and went, New York colleges and universities appeared to be taking a “wait and see” approach to whether the Trump administration will cut off federal funding.
The State University of New York reaffirmed it would stand by its diversity, equity and inclusion commitments. Columbia University removed DEI references from school websites and made changes to race-based graduations, though it intends to follow through with the ceremonies.
Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News
Columbia University Campus. (Luiz C. Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
On Feb. 14, the U.S. Education Department gave schools two weeks to drop all policies and actions that treat students differently based on race. Colleges that do not comply risk unwanted scrutiny or a significant hit to their bottom lines, but few in New York have made sweeping changes.
“Overall, the reaction in the city — more than the rest of the country — is kind of a wait and see posture,” said Ann Marcus, a professor of college leadership and administration at New York University. “You don’t want to go turning anything upside down and find out it’s not that serious.”
The guidance, in what is known as a “Dear Colleague” letter, dramatically expanded the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action in college admissions to all race-based efforts in schools. The memo, which provides notice of the Trump administration’s interpretation of existing law, is currently being challenged in court.
New York higher education leaders say the law is on their side.
This week, SUNY Chancellor John King, a former U.S. Secretary of Education under President Obama, declared he had “no intention” of retreating from diversity and inclusion. He said initiatives such as a pipeline program for Black college leaders would continue — it would just be open to all applicants.
“The missives from the federal government to date have not been consistent with the law,” King said Tuesday at a hearing on New York’s higher education budget.
His counterpart at CUNY made the distinction between the Education Department’s guidance and his interpretation of the law.
“The ‘Dear Colleague’ letter is a guidance letter,” said Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez, who said they would make any changes as needed. “But until that happens, we’ve been working around all applicable federal and state and city law.”
Columbia, which became a target of the GOP’s ire during last year’s pro-Palestinian protests, has taken additional steps to fall in line. The school has retracted the public DEI statements of some programs, removed faculty diversity data, and revised a calendar of multicultural graduation events. The missing diversity statements were first detected by the student newspaper, Columbia Spectator.
Special graduations for affinity groups gained popularity across American universities, including at Columbia, where the practice began two decades ago as an opportunity for graduates to celebrate with their community. In recent years, though conservatives have condemned the ceremonies as an example of school-sanctioned segregation.
“In a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history, many American schools and universities even encourage segregation by race at graduation ceremonies,” read the Education Department guidance, which explicitly declared the practice unlawful.
Since last month, Columbia has removed any reference to diversity from the schedule, according to a review of the digital archive Wayback Machine. And while the ceremonies are scheduled to continue, they will not be called “graduations” anymore, but “Celebrations for Graduates.”
Columbia did not return requests for comment, though interim President Katrina Armstrong wrote to students and faculty that for months, the administration has been “actively preparing” for broader changes to federal policy.
“We cannot predict all that will unfold, but we are actively planning to mitigate the worst effects,” she said.
NYU, where President Trump’s son Barron is a student, has largely avoided taking any official stance. Last week, the university provost told faculty she heard from many of them “expressing concerns about the uncertainty” stemming from the Dear College letter and other federal mandates. A NYU spokesman did not return a request for comment.
“I want to assure you that there are teams of people across the University, and beyond, closely monitoring these developments,” Provost Georgina Dopico wrote in a Feb. 18 memo. “As importantly, I want to affirm to you, amidst all of the uncertainty, that NYU’s core values and commitments remain unchanged.”
NYU’s Marcus explained a lack of definitive statements should not be mistaken for inaction.
In the absence of university-wide guidance, Marcus said some individual schools or programs are making their own decisions about how to proceed. On her campus, she had already heard of one event cancellation from a student.
“It doesn’t mean that behind the scenes, they’re not making some moves to try to minimize this,” Marcus said of college administrators. “[The Trump administration] really want to destroy higher education. It’s this mania about the elites and universities having progressive ideologies and ‘woke-ness’ and all that, but it’s very hostile — and not new.”
