Camelia Malkami
Offices, schools, and divisions across the University have quietly erased language and removed pages concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) on their websites since before President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January.
Many of the changes schools and divisions made to their websites came before February 14, when the Department of Education issued new guidance directing educational institutions to eliminate DEI programs and policies within the following two weeks or risk losing federal funding.
The Maroon could not confirm exactly when before February 14 most of the changes were made.
During his campaign, Trump vowed to eliminate colleges’ diversity programs, promising legislation to fine universities with DEI policies “up to the entire amount of their endowment.”
Last month, he signed an executive order calling for an end to “illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities,” including at private universities that receive federal funding, like UChicago.
“Diversity and inclusion are part of the University of Chicago’s longstanding values, as President Alivisatos and Provost Baicker have stated in the University’s statement on diversity,” the University said in a statement to the Maroon in response to questions to the Office of the Provost, the Division of the Humanities, and the Biological Sciences Division. “The University periodically works to maintain the consistency of these and other points on websites across campus.”
The Harris School of Public Policy appears to have removed its “Diversity & Inclusion” webpage sometime during the week before Inauguration Day, according to versions of the Harris website archived on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. The “Diversity & Inclusion” page URL now redirects to the former “Harris Experience” page, which has been renamed “Student Engagement and Belonging.”
Likewise, a page for Harris’s Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Board is no longer publicly accessible. The Harris Diversity & Inclusion Office is no longer listed on the school’s website.
“As part of a broader restructuring last year to enhance the Harris School student experience, the Harris School combined its Office of Student Engagement and Office of Diversity & Inclusion into the newly created Office of Student Engagement and Belonging, led by an associate dean,” the University wrote in a separate statement in response to a request for comment from Harris.
The Office of the Provost’s “Diversity and Inclusion” site now requires a CNet ID for many of its previously publicly available resources, including the “D&I Planning Toolkit,” a University-designed “resource for leaders to advance diversity and inclusion in their units”; information about how to recruit diverse faculty; “Reflections on Race: A Multimedia Resource Guide,” a list of readings for community members about anti-racism, the justice system, and other diversity-related topics; and the “Scholarships and Funding” page, which used to direct students to scholarships aimed at members of underrepresented groups.
Those websites “are intended for members of the UChicago community; like other such sites, they are available to anyone with a CNet ID,” the University wrote in its statement.
The Biological Sciences Division has significantly pared down its “Diversity and Inclusion” website since October, removing a directory of LGBTQ+ faculty in the division; its D&I Diaries podcast, which is still available on Apple Podcasts but has not released a new episode since August; and a “Related Links” page, which still appears on the website but directs to an error message. Other pages with information about D&I-related events held in 2024 have also been removed.
“At UChicago Medicine, [periodic maintenance] has included updating some websites to reflect the academic health system’s mission and long-term strategic priorities,” the University said in the statement to the Maroon. “UCM upholds the same values of diversity that are reflected in the University’s statement [on diversity].”
The Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice eliminated a detailed mission statement for its Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Committee from a page on its website, erasing goals including the incorporation of “diversity and inclusion content in the Crown Family School curriculum” and the “recruitment and retention of a diverse cadre of tenure-track and non-tenure-track instructors” and staff.
The updated page added links to Crown’s 2024 Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Initiatives Report and Inclusion, Equity, and Diversity Strategic Roadmap, the latter of which outlines broad diversity goals, including ones related to recruiting and maintaining diverse faculty.
The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) modified language on its former “Equity, Diversity & Inclusion” page—which has been rebranded to remove the word “Equity”—to eliminate a specific commitment to representation for “students across age, gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, ability and disability, religion, belief, and backgrounds.”
The Humanities Division deleted a clause on its “Diversity & Inclusion” page that had said it prioritized “matters of social justice and equality” and, in January, changed the title of its former assistant dean of students for diversity and inclusion, Loreal E. Robertson, to “associate dean of students for student support and engagement.”
According to the University’s statement, “in addition to other staff changes in the Division of Humanities last year, this position was updated from assistant dean of students to associate dean of students.”
Several pages on Harris’s website referring to the school’s Diversity Visit Day, a program offered for prospective students to learn about support “for individuals from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in U.S. graduate programs and first generation college students,” were also removed on February 17, after the new Department of Education guidance was issued.
The Division of the Social Sciences removed a page dedicated to its Diversity and Inclusion Committee. The current page is now blank and displays a 404 error in the browser tab. The Maroon could not confirm whether the page was removed before or after February 14.
Representatives for PME, Crown, and the Division of the Social Sciences did not respond to requests for comment.
Editor’s note, February 20, 2025, 6:45 p.m.: This article was updated to include a University statement about changes on the Harris School’s website. The updated article also provides additional context on changes to the Crown Family School’s website.
We ask anyone who has knowledge of changes to DEI-related content or policies to please contact us at editor@chicagomaroon.com or submit a tip through our tip form.