Harvard University is changing the name of its diversity, equity, and inclusion office to the Office of Community and Campus Life after battling with the Trump administration over its DEI initiatives. 

Sherri Charleston, Harvard’s chief diversity officer — now the University’s chief Community and Campus Life officer — announced the restructuring of the university’s DEI office in a Monday email.

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“In the weeks and months ahead, we will take steps to make this change concrete and to work with all of Harvard’s schools and units to implement these vital objectives, including shared efforts to reexamine and reshape the missions and programs of offices across the university,” Charleston wrote.

The announcement came just hours after university lawyers and the Trump administration held a conference regarding the government’s freeze of $2.2 billion in federal funding due to the university’s DEI initiatives and lack of action on campus antisemitism.

Harvard University filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration last week, with University President Alan Garber accusing the federal government of seeking “unprecedented and improper control” over “whom we hire and what we teach.” 

“No government, regardless of which party, should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” Garber wrote in a statement to the university.

Two weeks ago, the Trump administration sent a list of demands to Harvard that included abolishing DEI directives, terminating faculty who engage in activism, appointing an outside individual to monitor staff and students for “viewpoint diversity,” and banning international students who rally against the United States. 

The Education Department has also opened up an investigation into the student-run journal, the  Harvard Law Review, for allegedly engaging in discriminatory practices. 

“Harvard Law Review’s article selection process appears to pick winners and losers on the basis of race, employing a spoils system in which the race of the legal scholar is as, if not more, important than the merit of the submission,” acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor said. “Title VI’s demands are clear: recipients of federal financial assistance may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin.”

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A similar complaint against Harvard Law Review was dismissed in federal court in 2019. 

The Trump administration’s efforts to revoke federal funding for universities and colleges follow an executive order prohibiting federal dollars from going to institutions implementing DEI mandates and directives, as well as Trump’s campaign promise to pull funding from schools fostering antisemitism.