Philly-area colleges are reviewing federal directive on DEI but have not made changes like Penn

As colleges locally attempt to decipher what the U.S. Department of Education’s new guidance on diversity initiatives means for their campuses, a national higher education group has urged a calm, thoughtful response, noting that the directive is not law.

In a “Dear Colleague” letter issued last Friday, the department warns schools and colleges they could lose federal funding unless they stop using racial preferences as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, and other areas. The letter refers to the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said colleges could not use race as a factor in deciding whether students should be admitted and indicated the department would apply the ruling more broadly.

The letter is the department’s attempt to lay out how it intends to interpret and enforce compliance with that law, an effort that likely will face court challenges.

“Take a breath,” Jon Fansmith, a senior vice president at the American Council on Education, a higher education advocacy group, said during a webinar this week. “Respond calmly. Seek expertise. … And move forward in a way that is consistent with your mission and your values.”

Area colleges contacted, including Temple, Rutgers, Pennsylvania State, and Rowan Universities and Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges, seem to be taking that approach: They are reviewing the department’s new guidance but so far have not opted for changes.

The University of Pennsylvania, however, has been systematically scrubbing its website, policies, and programs of references to diversity since shortly after the start of President Donald Trump’s administration, when he issued an executive order threatening to pull federal funding to schools over DEI.

“We are reviewing our programs for compliance with federal law but not revising our values,” said Stephen J. MacCarthy, Penn’s interim vice president for university communications. “All of our initiatives and programs that support the strength and excellence of all members of our community, including broad outreach to ensure we have the best and the brightest students, faculty, and staff, are lawful and will continue. We are being thoughtful and judicious in responding to the federal demands.”

» READ MORE: Penn scrubs diversity initiatives from its website to comply with Trump order

Schools have two weeks to comply with the directive, the department said.

“We should not overreact and start pulling things down,” said Mushtaq Gunja, also a senior vice president at ACE.

Colleges have worked hard to come into compliance with the Supreme Court decision, and if they were in compliance with the law before the department’s new guidance, they should still be in compliance, said Ted Mitchell, ACE president.

“So overcompliance, anticipatory compliance, preemptive compliance is not a strategy,” he said. “The strategy needs to be much more considered, much more nuanced.”

» READ MORE: What Philly-area schools are saying about the SCOTUS ruling to end race-based admissions in colleges

Temple said it is “taking extra care to confirm that our policies and practices are in compliance.” It continues to maintain its Center for Antiracism.

“We’re going to uphold the law while helping everyone reach their full potential,” said Valerie Harrison, vice president for community impact and civic engagement. “That’s how we have always done the work and I don’t see anything currently changing that work.”

Penn State told its community that while the leadership team is discussing what the guidance means, there is no directive to cancel activities.

“We are reviewing the Department of Education’s revised position in relation to our work as a college and the many educational opportunities we offer,” said Chris Mills, a spokesperson for Haverford College. “As always we will comply with all relevant laws while maintaining fidelity to our educational mission and values.”

At Penn, the removal of references to diversity started even before last week’s letter and has stirred concern among some faculty who say the school should not change its policies but fight for its principles.

ACE’s Fansmith said colleges have to make their own decisions that they find “in their best interest and understanding of the environment they are in.”

Penn has been under a national political microscope. For about a year and a half, since the uproar over the Palestine Writes Literature Festival held on campus in September 2023, the university has found itself under scrutiny by high-powered donors and lawmakers; its former president, Liz Magill, resigned following a bipartisan backlash over her congressional testimony regarding the handling of antisemitism complaints, plunging the school into perhaps its greatest leadership crisis in decades.

» READ MORE: Penn stands to lose $250 million from threatened cuts to scientific research funds under Trump

Among local colleges, Penn stands to lose the most in National Institutes of Health funding — about $250 million ― under another Trump directive that seeks to cap reimbursements to universities and medical institutions for overhead costs associated with research. Faculty from area universities, including Penn, held a rally in Philadelphia on Wednesday opposing the cut, part of a national day of protest.

And both Trump and one of his closest allies, Elon Musk, are Penn alums, perhaps making it likely the university would be in the spotlight for how it handles the executive directives.

Lindsay Guare, a doctoral candidate in genomics and computational biology at Penn who attended Wednesday’s rally, said her program leaders have assured her that while the words are going away, the values are not.

“We will continue, especially in health equity, to do our best to represent as many communities as possible as we try to better human health,” said Guare, who spoke against the research funding cuts at the faculty rally.

She said she does not blame Penn for taking the action it did.

“They have to do what they have to do, and I have to stay in my lane and trust them,” Guare said in an interview. “But from a personal standpoint, I know that the mission stays the same even if the words have to change for unfortunate reasons.”

Cara McClellan, a practice associate professor of law at Penn, said colleges should stand by their commitments to equity and inclusion to the fullest extent of the law. For Penn, which is in Philadelphia, it is even more critical that the university ensures the school is open to students of all backgrounds, she said.

“That’s particularly important when we think about how many talented students there are in Philadelphia who have been excluded by criteria that don’t take into consideration [they may have attended] an under-resourced district school,” she said. “It’s important to consider the disparities that exist.”

Officials at ACE said there is no “legal grounding” for the department’s interpretation of the court’s decision, and a lot of courts will disagree with it. The letter, they said, did not highlight specific examples of diversity practices that would violate the law, an attempt to “muddy the waters” and force schools to scramble, they said.

“This is in many ways an invitation to all of us to drive the [decision-making] back to the Supreme Court to have them weigh in on how far their rule extends,” ACE’s Mitchell said.