The Trump administration is putting schools on notice that they may lose federal funding over their left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies, the White House’s latest move to root DEI out of American institutions.

The Department of Education sent a letter Friday to educational institutions directing recipients to eliminate DEI programs over the next 14 days or face the possibility of federal funding cuts.

“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions. The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent,” the letter reads.

The letter was written by Craig Trainor, the Education Department’s acting assistant secretary for civil rights, and its instructions apply to academic institutions from preschool all the way through college, and state education agencies that receive federal funding.

“The Department intends to take appropriate measures to assess compliance with the applicable statutes and regulations based on the understanding embodied in this letter beginning no later than 14 days from today’s date, including antidiscrimination requirements that are a condition of receiving federal funding,” the letter adds.

The Education Department is instructing schools to review their programming to ensure it complies with federal civil rights law, end their use of race proxies to circumvent the law, and stop working with third party contractors to bypass federal law.

Trainor’s sweeping directive is based on the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling in SFFA v. Harvard that found race-based college admissions standards to be unlawful under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. He argues that the Supreme Court’s determination can be broadly applies to educational institutions, meaning that federal law prohibits them from exercising differential treatment for individuals on the basis of race for all of their decision-making.

In the letter, Trainor clarifies that it is not permissible to predict a student’s race and evaluate them favorably based on cues such as admissions essays, extracurriculars, and other writing samples. Likewise, Trainor says that using proxies for race to create systematic racial preferences is illegal, with an example being eliminating standardized testing to increase racial diversity.

Trainor also describes how DEI programs discriminate on the basis of race and “stigmatize” students based on harmful stereotypes that hinder their ability to receive a full educational experience. DEI initiatives programs often separate people based on immutable characteristics and teach people to obsess over the perceived impact that their identity might have in every facet of life.

Critics of DEI believe the left-wing office initiatives are divisive for fixating on people’s identities and prioritizing such characteristics instead of merit and character. The Supreme Court’s ruling two years ago was a major victory for conservative opponents of DEI who believe its discriminatory nature violates federal law.

Prior to the Trump administration, several red states banned DEI from schools and state governments after conservatives began fighting back against the widespread adoption of DEI during the summer 2020 Black Lives Matter riots and racial reckoning.

Now, DEI is on the retreat in corporate America as the Trump White House takes an aggressive approach to ending DEI practices in American institutions. President Donald Trump signed executive orders last month declaring DEI illegal and ending affirmative action requirements for federal contractors, two moves that pose a significant blow to DEI’s future. Trump is similarly rooting out DEI from the federal government by moving to fire DEI staffers and directing agencies to end DEI programming.