Penn scrubs diversity initiatives from its website to comply with Trump order

The University of Pennsylvania’s medical school plans to dissolve committees having to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion and any roles that implement such efforts.

That’s what Roy Hamilton, vice dean for inclusion, diversity, and equity at the Perelman School of Medicine, communicated to a group of medical school diversity program leaders at a meeting last week, according to a source who attended but asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

Its websites dealing with diversity also are under review by a university committee and will likely undergo removal or significant modification, the source said. Even the school’s pipeline programs that bring candidates from diverse backgrounds into the medical school for programming will be evaluated to be sure they do not discriminate against anyone, including nonminorities. Those programs also could be changed or dissolved, the source said.

That move represented one action Penn is taking to respond to President Donald Trump’s executive order threatening funding for colleges that employ diversity efforts. Penn Medicine is far from the only school at the Ivy League university taking such measures. Hamilton told attendees the directives were coming from College Hall, Penn’s main administration building.

While Penn is a private university, it relies on federal grants to support its research and has faced immense pressure over political issues in recent years. But some faculty members are voicing concern about the swift removal of diversity efforts.

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

“I feel like the supposed values of the university and their investment in these efforts has all been a charade, and I feel like the university has no values other than the value of its endowment,” the source said.

“What’s next? Are they going to say we have to stop doing vaccine research because RFK doesn’t believe in it?” the source added, referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was confirmed as health secretary Thursday and has been openly skeptical of vaccinations.

Over the last week, the Daily Pennsylvanian, Penn’s student newspaper, has been meticulously documenting changes regarding diversity to websites at other Penn schools, including Wharton, Penn Engineering, the School of Dental Medicine, the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, Penn Libraries, and athletics.

“We are reviewing websites and programs to ensure they are consistent with our nondiscrimination policies and federal law,” Penn said in a statement last week.

Trump’s order, titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” states: “Illegal DEI and DEIA policies not only violate the text and spirit of our long-standing federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system. Hardworking Americans who deserve a shot at the American Dream should not be stigmatized, demeaned, or shut out of opportunities because of their race or sex.”

Neither Penn Medicine nor Hamilton, the diversity dean, responded to requests for comment.

University leaders also last week, referring to a Trump order, amended Penn’s policy on equal opportunity and nondiscrimination.

Penn leaders, including interim president J. Larry Jameson, noted in a campus message that Trump had rescinded an executive order that had required recipients of federal funds, the leaders wrote, to use “affirmative action to promote equal opportunity in employment.”

They issued a new policy that no longer includes “affirmative action” and also removed a reference that stated the university “values diversity” and that “diversity is prized at Penn,” according to the student newspaper. Instead, it now says Penn’s character “is reflected in the wide variety of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives of the Penn community.”

The moves have caused concern among some faculty who object to the administration’s decision to direct faculty to “rename, constrain, and alter academic programming,” said Amy Offner, president of Penn’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors. “It’s the right of faculty to make decisions about academic programming.”

Furthermore, the university should not change its policies but fight for its principles, she said.

“The bottom line is this is not a time for anticipatory obedience when it comes to the university’s commitment to anti-racism and nondiscrimination,” Offner said. “The purpose of these orders are to see which parts of our society are weakest, which parts will cave to threats. … The only response is to stand up, explain the public value of the research and the teaching that happens … all across the university.”

The national AAUP last week joined a lawsuit opposing Trump’s executive order.

“The elimination of DEI programs and initiatives at public academic institutions are a threat to the democratic purposes of higher education as a public good,” AAUP president Todd Wolfson, an associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University, said in a statement.

Penn’s move appears to be in stark contrast to several other local schools, including Temple and Drexel Universities, that said last week they had taken no steps to remove diversity references or programming.

“We are continuing our work,” said Timothy Welbeck, executive director of Temple’s Center for Antiracism. “Our leadership has reiterated their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as values that are consistent with the mission of our university and in many ways are a continuation of the vision of [Temple founder] Russell Conwell to create an institution that provides opportunities to those who might not ordinarily have them.”

Drexel said in a statement that while it had not made changes in response to executive orders, “the university is continuing to monitor the situation.”

» READ MORE: Temple kept its commitment to open a center on antiracism. Penn State didn’t. What does that mean?

But on Friday, in a “dear colleague” letter, the U.S. Department of Education ordered schools that receive federal funds to stop using racial preferences as a factor in their admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline and other areas.

“Students should be assessed according to merit, accomplishment, and character — not prejudged by the color of their skin,” Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said in a statement. “The Office for Civil Rights will enforce that commitment.”

Schools have “toxically indoctrinated students” that the country “is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism,’ the letter states, “and advanced discriminatory policies and practices ... under the banner of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion.’”

Institutions were ordered to comply or face the loss of federal funding. Whether that will change some colleges’ stance is uncertain. On Sunday, Temple said it was reviewing the education department’s guidance and “taking extra care to confirm that our policies and practices are in compliance with applicable law.”

Nationally, some colleges, in addition to Penn, already have been taking steps since Trump’s executive order attacking DEI.

North Carolina’s public university system earlier this month suspended all “general-education and major-specific course requirements related to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” citing Trump’s order, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Vanderbilt University this month removed diversity-related messaging from its website, reported the Nashville Banner. So did Northeastern University, reports CBS News. The Rutgers University Center for Minority Serving Institutions last month canceled a forthcoming conference indirectly funded through the U.S. Department of Labor, in response to Trump’s order.

Penn has been in the eye of the political storm before.

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.

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 universities and medical institutions receive from the agency for overhead costs associated with research. 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.

The school is already feeling pressure. The Department of State, in a letter to Penn on Thursday that was obtained by The Inquirer, said terms of a grant to its Penn Museum had been modified, and the school had five days to prove it doesn’t “operate any programs promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion that violate any applicable federal anti-discrimination laws.”

The grant was in reference to a “Cultural Freedom Project / Countering False Narratives” but did not list the amount. None of the funds can be used for purposes that do not comply with Trump’s executive order, the email said.

» READ MORE: Penn’s medical school formalizes its partnership with HBCUs in pursuit of greater diversity

Penn’s efforts to scrub its websites of diversity language, as documented by the DP, began last week. The former DEI website for Wharton ― the business school ― now notes a commitment to “equal opportunity.” Marc Rowan, the deep-pocketed donor who led the campaign to oust Magill and former board chair Scott L. Bok, chairs Wharton’s board of advisers.

“We have initiated a review of our efforts in this area to ensure they are fully consistent with the new guidance established by the federal government,” the page says.

Penn Libraries’ former DEI website is now defunct. The engineering school’s DEI page instead leads to the Cora Ingrum Center for Community and Outreach.