This post is part of a series on weaponizing antidiscrimination law.
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A central element in Trump’s attacks on higher education has been the manipulation of antidiscrimination law. At the heart of this effort is the weaponization of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal funding. Using a combination of Title VI investigations, presidential Executive Orders, and “Dear Colleague Letters,” federal agencies under Trump have turned Title VI on its head to undermine the fundamental purposes of the law.
The federal Department of Education and Department of Justice have redefined as discriminatory college and university efforts to expand equal access to groups historically excluded from or treated unequally by higher education institutions. In other words, federal agencies are redefining Title VI discrimination to mean the “harm” that white students “suffer” as a result of institutional actions to increase equality. As DEI efforts perversely become the face of discrimination, the Trump administration has also opportunistically leveraged charges of antisemitism as a cover for the dismantling of the civil rights project as a whole. The implications of this maneuver have profound consequences for what is acceptable to know, teach, think, and do on college and university campuses. As the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure wrote in its recently released report, On Title VI, Discrimination, and Academic Freedom, the Trump administration’s attempt to unmake the Civil Rights Act by hijacking the language of discrimination is nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the history of the nation.
This blog post traces the ways that the Trump administration has used Title VI to pressure colleges and universities to undermine academic freedom and free speech, and to increase inequality in student admissions, faculty appointments, and academic programs. It also describes how universities have largely crumbled in the face of this pressure: restricting faculty and student academic freedom, suppressing dissent throughout the university, and shrinking or eliminating ethnic studies programs and DEI programs.
DEI Attacks as “dog whistle” politics
Building on Trump’s Executive Orders attacking DEI programs, on February 14, 2025, the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a “Dear Colleague Letter” (DCL) that declares its intent to launch broad Title VI investigations into college and university DEI programs that “stigmatize students that belong to particular racial groups” based on “crude racial stereotypes,” and teach that students of those racial groups “bear unique moral burdens that others do not.” Put more plainly, the OCR’s DCL is aimed at shielding white students from DEI programs that address the moral responsibility to expand access to all members of the public to higher education and other opportunities in society.
For the moment, at least, OCR will not implement the DCL and accompanying FAQ, due to a federal district court preliminary injunction. Issued on April 24, in NEA v. US Dep’t. of Educ., the injunction is based on the likelihood that plaintiffs will win their claims that the DCL and FAQ violate the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment. Even without such enforcement measures, though, Trump and OCR’s attacks on DEI constitute what the AAUP has described as dog-whistle politics, an attempt “to turn back the clock on advances that have been made toward the goal of diversity in the faculty, student body, and areas of study.”
As the AAUP Committee A Statement further explains, “such attacks can easily reinforce and indeed fuel portrayals of entire fields and disciplines—including ethnic studies, critical race theory, and gender studies—as ‘political’ and ‘ideological’ projects and not serious subjects or research disciplines. When entire fields and subjects related to the study of race and gender, for example, are not considered ‘intellectual’ pursuits, both academic freedom and DEI as social and institutional values are compromised, and the charge of orthodoxy gains purchase. This not only affects the fields and subjects traditionally tarred as ideological but also compromises the progress of knowledge by thwarting interdisciplinary exchange and endangering the very mission of higher education.”
Antisemitism Charges as Pretext
Although Title VI does not include religion as a protected category, since 2004, the OCR has interpreted the statute to include religion as part of protected “shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics,” which OCR describes as protecting students who are “Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, Sikh, South Asian, Hindu, Palestinian, or any other faith or ancestry.” Under the second Trump administration, OCR has focused primarily on antisemitism, using the overly broad definition developed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) to make unsupported Title VI allegations of antisemitic hostile environment harassment on campuses.
While including criteria that accurately describe antisemitism, the IHRA definition also includes as examples of antisemitic speech certain types of criticisms about the state of Israel and Zionism. Relying on this conflation of political critique with antisemitism, OCR has alleged Title VI violations based on speech that is protected by the First Amendment and academic freedom. For example, the IHRA defines as antisemitic speech “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor” and speech “applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.” Even Kenneth Stern, one of the authors of the IHRA definition, has objected to what he has called the “weaponizing” of the definition, arguing that its misuse undermines efforts to detect and combat real instances of antisemitism.
The Trump administration has used the conflation of political criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism to justify cutting billions of dollars of federal funding. Drawing primarily on speech protected by the First Amendment and academic freedom, and without following any of Title VI procedural requirements, Trump’s multi-agency “Task Force to Combat Antisemitism” has justified these cuts by accusing colleges and universities of creating an antisemitic hostile environment. As federal District Court Judge Burroughs found in issuing a permanent injunction against the Trump administration’s withholding of federal funds from Harvard, “The fact that Defendants’ swift and sudden decision to terminate funding, ostensibly motivated by antisemitism, was made before they learned anything about antisemitism on campus or what was being done in response, leads the Court to conclude that the sudden focus on antisemitism was, at best…arbitrary and, at worst, pretextual….[T]he government-initiated onslaught against Harvard was much more about promoting a governmental orthodoxy in violation of the First Amendment than about anything else, including fighting antisemitism.”
Capitulation and “Anticipatory Obedience”
Despite the lack of evidence of discrimination and the federal agency’s failure to follow any Title VI due process requirements, several universities have capitulated to federal agency demands to enter agreements to make such institutional changes. In far more cases, colleges and universities have engaged in “anticipatory obedience”—taking conciliatory actions based simply on fear of a Title VI allegation being made.
All colleges and universities have one similarity in their responses to Trump’s attacks: they have failed to join together to refuse to accede to Trump’s tactics of intimidation, fear, and extortion. Despite calls by faculty, students, and staff, and by organizations like the AAUP for collective action, college and university administrations have opted for an individualistic approach, which has led them to compromise and capitulate on principles that are fundamental to the university fulfilling its public mission: university independence; faculty academic freedom and job security; faculty, student and staff self-governance; freedom of expression for faculty, students and staff; and due process in disciplinary proceedings. Acting collectively, colleges and universities could gain power by forging alliances—with each other and with professional organizations and unions—to fight effectively for these principles and the future of higher education. Even Harvard, which should be credited with fighting back against the outrageous demands of the Trump administration, has less power by acting alone and making compromises during the process.
Multiple lawsuits, including by the AAUP, AAUP chapters, AFT, and NEA, have been brought against the Trump administration, alleging that its DCLs and actions against Harvard, Columbia, and the University of California fail to follow Title VI standards and processes and are unconstitutional under the First and Fifth Amendments. Rather than joining these lawsuits, as Harvard did, or filing separate legal challenges, some universities—including University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University, and Brown University—have reached “deals” with the Trump administration despite the absence of any findings of Title VI discrimination. Further, these “deals” include measures that go beyond any lawful remedies under Title VI, including university capitulations to make institutional changes in programs, curricula, admissions, and hiring, and to agree to external monitoring.
Columbia is the most notorious example. In its July 24, 2025 deal, made immediately after suspending or expelling students for participation in pro-Palestinian protests, Columbia agreed to pay $200 million to the U.S. government plus $21 million to an EEOC claims fund in exchange for the government’s restoration of $400 million in grant funds and closing pending Title VI and Title VII investigations or compliance reviews. The agreement formalizes its earlier capitulation to change academic programming and its code of conduct and discipline, with additional provisions agreeing to: adopt the IHRA definition of antisemitism; restructure programs and hiring in regional area studies starting with the Middle East; decrease international student enrollment; allow oversight by an external “Resolution Monitor” to ensure compliance with the agreement, including that hiring and admissions do not promote “unlawful DEI goals”; and establish processes to ensure all students’ commitment to “longstanding traditions” and “fundamental values” as determined by the Resolution Monitor. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has described the deal as “an excellent template for other universities.”
Implicit in these concessions, as Committee A has noted, is “unfounded assumption that critical scholarship”—in this case, on the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa—”produces antisemitism.” Reflecting on the agreement more broadly, the Columbia Chapter of the AAUP aptly observes that it is a “blunt instrument through which the Trump Administration has demonstrated its power to bludgeon American universities into undermining the traditions of free and open inquiry, robust political speech, and shared governance that have long distinguished them.”
Faculty—both those on contingent appointments and those in tenure-track and tenured positions—students, and staff are increasingly punished for protected activity. In its report, the AAUP has put forward recommendations to address these problems, urging administrations, governing boards, and faculty to refuse to comply with unlawful federal government demands based on alleged violation of Title VI. Administrations and governing boards must instead publicly affirm their commitment to defending academic freedom and support faculty, students, and staff members under attack.
