The re-election of President Donald J. Trump has brought a sense of uncertainty as 2024 draws to a close. As the year winds down, undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, staff and administration are left to wonder what comes next in higher education.
Several states have already dismantled diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programming, and other states anticipate something similar coming their way. Student debt issues loom, and problems due to the rollout of the 2024-25 FAFSA linger. Institutions continue to see presidential resignations, and the leaders of the future try to figure out how best to oversee colleges and universities.
Let’s take a look at the year that was as plans develop for the road ahead.
Attacks on DEI
In March, Dr. Shaun Harper worked with fellow researchers to compile the report “The Truths About DEI on College Campuses” in response to an acrimonious hearing held by the United States House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce titled “Divisive, Excessive, Ineffective: The Real Impact of DEI on College Campuses.” Committee member Burgess Owens, a House Republican, referred to DEI as a “long growing cancer that resides in the hearts of American academic institutions.”
Throughout the report, Harper, the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership, University Professor, Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy, and Founder and Chief Research Scientist of the USC (University of Southern California) Race and Equity Center, debunked DEI myths. He and 11 other scholars from around the country wrote essays reflecting on the positive effects of DEI.
These attacks on DEI have impacted higher education “quite disastrously,” Harper told Diverse. “Once you dig into each individual state and each individual institution, there are so many more suppressive activities that are happening.”
He explained that many campus administrators are self-imposing various versions of DEI rollbacks even when not legislatively mandated. “[They’re thinking] let’s get ahead of those attacks by self-imposing a pulling of the plug,” Harper said. “That over compliance as a residual effect of what’s happening in Texas, Tennessee and Florida, is also happening in California. … Even in a place like California, there are higher ed institutions that are behaving as if they are in a restrictive legislative context like Texas.”
