As Universities Eliminate DEI Programming, Harvard Stays Its Course

As many American universities erase their diversity, equity, and inclusion programming in response to threats from the new Trump administration, Harvard has taken a different road — quietly maintaining its diversity initiatives and sometimes actively defending diversity on campus.

Less than two weeks ago, Harvard President Alan M. Garber ’76 voiced support for the merits of diversity in opening remarks at the University’s third-annual Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging Forum.

“​​Our community spurs and speeds excellence by embracing difference in its many forms,” he said. “Exposure to different backgrounds, different perspectives, and different experiences leads to intellectual and personal growth.”

Garber’s defense of diversity at the event, which featured more than 40 speakers and spanned two days, was a striking statement in a month when other universities were scrubbing DEI websites and axing diversity offices in an attempt to insulate themselves against the White House’s aggressive campaign against DEI initiatives.

On the second day of his presidency, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to identify any gender- and race-based programming at universities that was in violation of civil rights legislation. And in February, the Department of Education warned all federally funded institutions, including Harvard, against using race in any decisions relating to “aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

But Trump’s crusade against DEI was not enough to pressure Harvard into canceling or rebranding the EDIB forum — and Garber’s remarks suggest that Harvard may choose to mount a strategic defense of diversity as an asset to its academic mission, rather than swiftly conceding to the White House.

More than a dozen institutions have scrubbed mentions of DEI from online webpages and shut down DEI-focused programs and centers in response to new orders from the Trump administration. On Friday, the University of Virginia formally shut down its DEI office, saying the risk of losing federal funding had left them with no choice.

Several Ivy League institutions have also aggressively curbed DEI programming, most notably the University of Pennsylvania. Since Trump returned to Washington, Penn has cut DEI programming at individual schools and replaced its central DEI website with a short message writing that it had “initiated a review of our programs in this area to ensure compliance.”

Harvard’s digital footprint, however, has changed little since Trump was sworn into office and it has yet to place a hard pause on any DEI-focused events.

While Harvard University Health Services indefinitely postponed a panel focused on LGTBQ+ care in February due to executive orders from the Trump administration, it rescheduled the panel to Tuesday quickly after.

But Garber and other administrators have also avoided directly confronting the White House’s anti-DEI orders. Provost John F. Manning ’82 and Faculty of Arts and Science Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra told alumni donors last month that the University would only take the lead in challenging executive orders, like those targeting DEI, under specific circumstances.

Other universities have taken direct aim at the Trump administration’s anti-DEI orders. Georgetown University responded to threats from a Trump-appointed federal attorney by accusing him of a “constitutional violation,” and Wesleyan University’s president has emerged as a leading critic of attacks on DEI.

Harvard has seemingly settled into a middle-of-the-pack approach — neither openly defying federal pressure nor rushing to dismantle its DEI efforts.

S. Paul Reville, a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said Harvard’s measured approach reflects an expectation that the Trump administration may not enforce the harshest language in its orders as law.

“The University, I would guess, is trying to read the tea leaves and understand how the federal government is interpreting various executive orders and which ones are binding and which ones aren’t,” he said.

Many of Trump’s anti-DEI measures are tied up in court. Education and civil liberties groups have filed challenges against orders including the Education Department letter and Trump’s Day One directive to sunset race- and gender-based programs. And federal judges have temporarily blocked major portions of Trump’s orders, including clauses targeting federal “equity-related” grants.

But Harvard’s choice to stay the course may be as much a matter of public image as legal latitude, with the University hoping to avoid the perception that it is reflexively backing off of its previous commitments to diversity in response to Trump’s threats.

Higher education attorney Peter F. Lake ’81 said Harvard was deliberately trying to find “a position that’s consistent with their mission” even while it tries to avoid making itself an easy target for Republicans.

“I’m convinced that if Harvard completely retreated from all of its stated values that would itself create a problem,” he said. “So somewhere in the higher leadership structure, there’s a balancing act going on as to exactly where we want to be.”

So far, Harvard has tried to walk that tightrope by defending diversity in terms of academic excellence — not social justice or mobility.

In an interview with The Crimson last month, outgoing Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana said that diversity was key to the University’s academic mission.

“Our diverse backgrounds and experiences and talents drive academic excellence,” he said.

And at the mid-February diversity event, Garber called diversity “a critical enabler of learning” and said that it contributed to “intellectual and personal growth.”

Lake suggested that Harvard’s explicit and frequent framing of diversity as integral to its academic mandate, rather than at odds with it, reflects what is likely to hold the strongest legal footing if DEI programs are challenged in court.

“Where Harvard seems to be is institutions that are standing on certain core values and recognizing that there is at least the potential that as these issues become more litigated — and I think they will — that the right to stand behind certain values of an institution will be reinforced by the court system,” he said.

The strategy also allows Harvard to stay within the bounds of its “institutional voice” policy, which discourages the University from taking political stances except on issues that implicate its “core function.”

Reville said Harvard’s response to threats to DEI programming will be inextricably shaped by the fact that it has already spent a year and a half under a political microscope.

“Harvard has been identified as a top target for those forces who are actively working against higher education,” he said. “And I think Harvard wants to be very careful and respond in a principled but measured way to a rapidly changing landscape.”

—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.