Harvard University
The US Treasury Department tabled the amendments on Thursday. If approved, the new rules will come into force after May 2027, at the end of the academic year.
A move away from diversity, equity and inclusion policies
This is the Trump administration’s latest attempt to force schools and colleges to abandon diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, which had become widespread prior to Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
Administration officials claim that these policies discriminate against white people and Asian Americans. University leaders have sharply criticised the initiative.
“The administration’s latest regulatory changes are the most blatant attempt to prevent working-class Americans and members of racial minorities from gaining access to higher education and a better life,” Euronews quotes Mike Gavin, President and Chief Executive of the Alliance for Higher Education, as saying.
Under pressure from the White House, dozens of universities have already closed or renamed their DEI departments, as well as scrapped scholarships and student societies intended for members of minority groups.
In the statement announcing the proposal, Finance Minister Scott Bessent made it clear that even those policy initiatives that no longer formally fall under the DEI umbrella could come under fire.
Racial preferences declared discriminatory
“Simply renaming racial preferences as ‘fair’, ‘inclusive’ or ‘diversity-enhancing’ does not alter their discriminatory nature,” Bessent wrote in a post on Platform X, announcing the draft legislation.
According to estimates by the US Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the proposal could affect up to 18,000 private schools, colleges and other educational institutions.
Private universities in the US have been exempt from a number of taxes for over a century, as they are considered to serve the public good. As a result, many higher education institutions save millions of dollars every year.
The Trump administration is presenting the new bill as a step towards restoring the merit principle in the US education system.
At the same time, the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into several medical schools which, it claims, give preference to Black and Latino applicants.
Administration officials insist that any such preferential treatment violates Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law prohibiting discrimination in education and originally enacted to combat segregation and its consequences.
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