Harvard revamps DEI office amid pressure from Trump administration
Harvard University is revamping its diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) amid its ongoing fight with the Trump administration, which it has sued after its funding was cut when it refused to make administration-demanded changes.
Those changes included eliminating DEI, among other policy reforms.
The office will now be called the Community and Campus Life and will focus on how to build a culture of belonging at the school, work to have students engage across differences and support first-generation and low-income students, Harvard said.
Sherri Ann Charleston, chief community and campus life officer, said that in a recent campus survey, a smaller percentage of students created relationships with people that have differing opinions.
'Our challenge today is to help all within that community to realize the benefits of learning, working, and living alongside others who come from various backgrounds, have had different experiences, and hold diverse viewpoints,' Charleston said.
Harvard sued the Trump administration after it took away more than $2 billion in federal funding over the Ivy League school not instituting its mandated changes.
Harvard has bashed the federal government for trying to control higher education.
'There is so much at stake,' Harvard President Alan Garber said. 'People leave their jobs. We have patients whose treatment in clinical trials might be interrupted. Animals that are used in research sometimes cannot continue to be maintained when the funding stops.'
'We are defending what I believe is one of the most important lynchpins of the American economy and way of life: our universities,' he added.
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