The Biden and Trump administrations have both stepped up enforcement of Title VI in the last two years.
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A new report released Monday by the American Association of University Professors and its Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure argues that the Trump administration has weaponized federal civil rights laws with a goal of discrediting colleges and compromising their academic freedom and institutional autonomy.
The report focuses in part on a surge of investigations that have been launched by the Department of Education since Oct. 7, 2023, especially those that involve national origin and religion. Based on an analysis of those cases, AAUP argues that in many instances the Trump administration has targeted types of speech or programming that do not actually qualify as legally actionable discrimination. Rather, the association says, the Trump administration has used this surge to sidestep historical procedures and enforce its own interpretation of the law.
Both the Biden and Trump administrations stepped up their enforcement of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin, after the Hamas attack on Israel prompted a number of protests on college campuses and an increase in reports of antisemitism. Their approaches, however, have been quite different.
Biden civil rights officials took issue with how colleges responded to reports of antisemitic harassment and found several colleges in violation of that law.
However, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to cut off funds and to demand sweeping changes at institutions—all in the name of combating antisemitism. More recently, the administration has used Title VI as a way to restrict and investigate race-based practices and programs as well as admissions decisions.
“In a perverse reading of DEI, the administration makes it an instance of racial discrimination rather than an attempt to dismantle the structures of discrimination based on race,” the report notes.
Over all, the AAUP argues that the Trump administration is attempting to “unmake” and “hijack” Title VI.
The Trump administration is “unmooring the Civil Rights Act from its foundational commitments to addressing structures of discrimination that prevent educational access,” the report stated. And doing so “is nothing less than an attempt to rewrite the history of the nation.”
