U.S. Department of Education Warns Universities Over Equity Programs, Threatens Federal Funding

The U.S. Department of Education issued a letter to universities on February 14th, broadly declaring all race-conscious programs illegal under federal law, including any decision affecting “aspects of student, academic, and campus life.”

The directive, attributed to Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, prescribes that all universities receiving federal funding have until February 28th to stop providing race-conscious social justice or equity programming before the Education Department begins “assess[ing] compliance… based on the understanding embodied in this letter.” The order suggests that “institutions that fail to comply… face potential loss of federal funding.”

“Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students, with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” writes Trainor, specifically naming admissions, financial aid, administrative support, discipline, and housing as areas affected by the new interpretation.

In a separate campus-wide communication sent by Caltech President Thomas Rosenbaum regarding proposed cuts to indirect-costs funding, the Caltech administration emphasized that they “continue to monitor and respond to federal directives and policy changes, and we will share information on such actions and the steps we are taking as appropriate.”

The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard saw frequent reference in the letter, but was interpreted with remarkable license, extending far beyond admissions and into the realm of student affairs, teaching, and governance. The scope of the order has opened the door to questions regarding affinity organizations, summer opportunities, and course offerings, with some commentators observing that these programs are also subject to scrutiny under the new guidance.

The breadth of these interpretations threatens to deal catastrophic damage to many Caltech campus programs, including the well-lauded First-Year Success Research Institute (FSRI), which has provided important academic and research opportunities to students for over fifty years. “FSRI is a really nice way to connect with people before the school year actually starts, [and] allowed me to become very familiar with the resources on campus,” one former FSRI student said, “and was helpful for transitioning from high school to Caltech. Without FSRI, the switch would’ve been more difficult.”

This recent development comes on the heels of recent efforts by the Trump administration to eliminate initiatives by the federal government and contractors to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and environmental justice, which it has called “radical and wasteful.” Critics, however, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), argue that President Trump’s new policies “cause palpable harm to educational outcomes and the basic civil liberties of both students and teachers,” and that the rescission of these programs threatens important civil rights progress made in the past several decades. Others question whether the new administration is eroding academic freedom and intellectual liberty by intercepting funding from academics or institutions that do not comply with the ideological direction prescribed by the federal government.

Caltech is a major destination for federal research spending, with total grants exceeding $221.7 million in 2024. This is not including over $2.5 billion received that year for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which is managed by Caltech for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

The Caltech Center for Inclusion and Diversity did not respond to a request for comment in the ~12 hours between the time this article was written and when it was printed. More updates will be published in a follow-up story in the following issue.

—TROY ZHANG, THE CALIFORNIA TECH