\n<\/p>\n
More than three dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke have their participation in a federal research partnership on the chopping block after the state department proposed to suspend them over their diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Guardian obtained an internal memo and spreadsheet showing that the state department is moving to exclude 38 institutions from the Diplomacy Lab program, which pairs university researchers with state department policy offices on foreign policy projects. The suspensions would take effect on 1 January, and because the list is not finalized, the school\u2019s have not yet been informed.<\/p>\n
The suspensions would reshape the academic partnership network, with 38 institutions removed and 10 new schools approved to join.<\/p>\n
Table showing status of funding from State Department to Universities over DEI policies<\/p>\n
The targeted schools include elite universities such as Stanford University, Yale University, Johns Hopkins University, Duke University and the University of Southern California, as well as American University, George Washington University, Syracuse University and several University of California campuses.<\/p>\n
Universities recommended to remain include Columbia University, MIT, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Virginia and the University of Texas at Austin. Several of these moved to comply with the administration\u2019s anti-DEI demands earlier this year \u2013 Columbia agreed in July to pay more than $200m to the federal government and pledged not to use \u201crace, color, sex or national origin\u201d in hiring decisions, while the University of Virginia\u2019s president resigned in June after the justice department demanded he step down over the school\u2019s diversity practices.<\/p>\n
Peter Trumbore, chair of the political science department and Diplomacy Lab campus coordinator at Oakland University, which would have its funding suspended, said they\u2019ve received no notification of a change. \u201cWe receive no funding from the state department for the projects that we do as Diplomacy Lab participants,\u201d he said. \u201cOur students have had invaluable experiences conducting research on behalf of State and working with State Department stakeholders in producing and presenting their work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The University of Southern California said in a statement: \u201cThe university complies with all applicable federal nondiscrimination laws and does not engage in any unlawful DEI hiring practices. We are proud of our long-standing partnerships with the federal government.\u201d The university said it \u201cappreciated travel funding\u201d provided by the program for two students in 2017.<\/p>\n
Sarah Voigt, director of communications at St Catherine University, said the school had been participating since 2020 and was first notified of a pause in Diplomacy Lab activities earlier this year on 31 January, with the program shut down \u201cdue to a lack of government funding\u201d and did not apply for any Fall 2025 research opportunities. She added: \u201cAt this time, we are not aware of any decision to exclude St Catherine University from future research opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 17 November memo states that an office within the state department\u2019s bureau of public affairs will update criteria to \u201conly include institutions with merit-based hiring practices\u201d and exclude those with DEI hiring policies, whether implemented openly or discreetly.<\/p>\n
The state department did not deny the memo\u2019s existence. \u201cThe Trump administration is very clear about its stance on DEI,\u201d a spokesperson said when the Guardian first reported the story. \u201cThe state department is reviewing all programs to ensure that they are in line with the president\u2019s agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
More than three dozen universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Duke have their participation in a federal research partnership on the chopping block after the state department proposed to suspend them over their diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices. Last week, the Guardian obtained an internal memo and spreadsheet showing that the state department is<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35371,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[2274,200,1052,116,1861,3546,736,199,694,489],"class_list":{"0":"post-35370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-dei","9":"tag-department","10":"tag-full","11":"tag-funding","12":"tag-list","13":"tag-losing","14":"tag-risk","15":"tag-state","16":"tag-support","17":"tag-universities"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}