Trump Staffs Education Department To Upend University DEI Programs

President Donald Trump tapped a slew of political appointees to the U.S. Department of Education last week, assembling a team to pressure Harvard and other universities to roll back diversity, equity, and inclusion policies.

The ten appointees will be led by Linda McMahon, the former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, pending her confirmation, which has been delayed by the Senate. Denise L. Carter — the deputy chief for student aid — will serve as the acting secretary of the Department.

Though McMahon will be a newcomer to national education leadership — serving on Connecticut’s Board of Education and heading the Small Business Administration during Trump’s first term — several of the department picks were already vocal critics of diversity initiatives in higher education. Several have specifically criticized universities’ handling of campus antisemitism.

Craig Trainor — the new deputy assistant secretary for policy at the Office for Civil Rights — previously served as the primary counsel to the House investigation that led to the proposal of the Antisemitism Awareness Act of 2023.

The bill sought to require the Department of Education to use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism when handling discrimination complaints. Harvard agreed to use the IHRA definition last week as part of a settlement agreement resolving two lawsuits that accused the University of tolerating campus antisemitism.

While the department did not often publicly challenge Harvard under the Biden administration, it is likely to play an outsized role in the Trump administration as House Republicans seek to turn threats of an endowment tax and cuts to federal funding into legislative action.

Ahead of department-level action, Trump has already signed an executive order mandating federally funded colleges and universities to sunset DEI programs — a directive that the appointees will now likely be responsible for executing.

Per Trump’s order, the education department will be charged with identifying up to nine institutions with endowments larger than $1 billion whose DEI initiatives violated civil rights legislation — a list that Harvard will likely be a target for.

Since Trump’s inauguration last week, the department has terminated DEI training programs, withdrawn its 2022 plan focused on increasing diversity, and scrubbed webpages housing resources focused on diversity.

Top House Republicans have also threatened to use the department to revoke Harvard’s federally certified accreditation, a certification required to receive federal student loans, research grants, and other federal funds.

“Your accreditation is on the line,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in an October recording obtained by The Guardian. “You’re not playing games any more or else you’re not a school any more.”

The Office for Civil Rights in particular is responsible for soliciting and investigating discrimination complaints, including allegations of antisemitism — a process that Trainor will now help oversee.

Just three days before Trump took office, Harvard quietly resolved a 2024 federal complaint filed with the OCR accusing the University of failing to protect students from anti-Palestinian harassment and intimidation.

Jonathan W. Pidluzny — the next deputy chief of staff for policy and programs at the department — comes from the America First Policy Institute, where he led an initiative focused on improving protections for free speech and intellectual diversity in higher education.

Pidluzny slammed the department he now joins for refusing to investigate universities accused of tolerating antisemitism in June testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means.

“University administrators have reacted to antisemitism, including its violent manifestations, with callous disregard for their Jewish students’ wellbeing,” Pidluzny said.

“So have public servants, including the U.S. Department of Education, which has utterly neglected its responsibility to hold colleges to account,” he added.

Pidluzny took particular aim at DEI initiatives at colleges and universities, calling them “hostile” to democratic ideals and a catalyst for campus antisemitism.

“DEI aims to use the university to reengineer American society away from its founding ideal — equality before the law and equal treatment according to individual merit,” Pidluzny said.

Candice Jackson — who was promoted to the deputy general counsel at the department — also came under fire when she was first appointed by former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos as head of the OCR for once arguing she was discriminated against for being white.

As an undergraduate at Stanford in the 1990s, Jackson penned an op-ed that called a special math section for minority students a form of “racial discrimination.”

Jackson endorsed Trump’s executive order challenging diversity programs at colleges and universities in a Saturday post on X, writing that it is critical “to put the brakes on federal overreach and DEI/gender insanity.”

The Department’s other picks include the heads of non-partisan think tank groups, former officials from the House of Representatives and Department of Justice, and a law professor. Two of the appointees have no prior experience in education.

Despite the early preparations for a slew of education policies, Trump still maintains he will abolish the department and send its authority “back to the states.”

Jackson suggested in her X post that abolishing the education department would be a longer-term goal.

“It will take time,” Jackson wrote.

—Staff writer Dhruv T. Patel can be reached at dhruv.patel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @dhruvtkpatel.

—Staff writer Grace E. Yoon can be reached at grace.yoon@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @graceunkyoon.