The Donald Trump guide to DEI on campus
The administration is picking its own favoured students and boundaries for speech
The agreement that the Trump administration struck with Columbia University in July makes one thing very clear: the university will henceforth treat everyone on its campus the same, regardless of characteristics such as race that the law recognises as potentially singling people out for discrimination. One provision declares that Columbia “will not provide benefits or advantages to individuals on the basis of protected characteristics in any school, component, division, department, foundation, association or element within the entire Columbia University system”.
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This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “DEI, FTW”
From the September 20th 2025 edition
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