DEI under attack: What does this mean for USC?

Since the presidential administration set a motion to ban DEI nationwide, USC has undergone several administrative changes.

By Sheridan Hunter

April 01, 2025 at 6:40AM PDT

Shortly after he was inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump signed two executive orders that would actualize republicans’ plans of gutting DEI nationwide: executive orders 14151 and 14173.

EO No. 14151, entitled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” calls for the immediate termination of all diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, programs and positions within the federal government. Additionally, EO No. 14173, titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” requires that all grants and contracts certify their compliance with federal anti-discrimination laws and affirm that they do not promote DEI, and enforces civil compliance at risk of federal investigation within the private and higher education sectors.

So what is USC’s response to the DEI initiatives?

When asked to comment on the administration’s DEI initiatives, the university provided Annenberg Media with the following Feb. 13 written statement: “We are reviewing all executive actions, and we follow all state and federal laws.”

The next day, the Department of Education released a letter announcing that K-12 schools and higher education institutions must eliminate the use of race in decisions concerning their policies and programs. This was advised to occur within two weeks of the letter’s release date or the institutions would risk losing federal funding. According to the letter, these include “admissions, hiring, promotion, compensation, financial aid, scholarships, prizes, administrative support, discipline, housing, graduation ceremonies, and all other aspects of student, academic and campus life.”

A week later, a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction, temporarily blocking the administration’s executive orders. By request of the city of Baltimore and higher education organizations who sued Trump, U.S. District Judge Adam Abelson of Baltimore found that the orders carried constitutional violations, including infringing on the freedom of speech, and cited them as “vague” and “threatening.”

USC President Carol Folt wrote in a statement later that week that the university “will continue to review our programs and practices to ensure both that their direct relationship to our academic mission is clear, and that we comply fully with evolving legal requirements.”

Following Folt’s statement, the Los Angeles Times reported that several USC schools and departments – including the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, Dornsife Department of Earth Sciences, Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, Roski School of Art and Design, School of Cinematic Arts and School of Dramatic Arts – have either changed or completely removed their DEI mission statements, staff positions or programming. That same day, it was also announced that the university’s Office of Inclusion and Diversity would be working with the Office of Culture, Ethics and Compliance, joining forces with the Culture Team.

Dr. Charles “Chuck” Murry, professor and chair of the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at the USC Keck School of Medicine, said his department’s website – which publicly promoted DEI at the time – was on track to a similar decision.

“I’m not proud to say it, but we’ve got to do it right now,” Murry said. “[The website is] up today, but we’re going to have to change it. I think it’s the right thing to do, even though it sticks in my craw to do it.”

The department’s website has since changed from “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)” to “Inclusive Excellence,” completely stripping any mention of DEI it once promoted from the page.

According to Murry, the decision to change the website wasn’t an easy one and isn’t a black and white issue.

“As I’ve risen in leadership… I can see their dilemmas now,” said Murry. “Everybody wants to do the right thing morally, but if you get a huge cut and you lay off an enormous amount of your talent, where’s the virtue in that? Yes, it’s principled, but where’s your mission then?”

Murry continued: “It’s conflicting priorities: we want to stand for justice – we need to stand for justice – but what is the most just thing?”

When it comes to the future of the department and ensuring that incoming students still feel included, Murry believes continuing their mission of inclusivity in less overt ways is the best way forward.

“I think we adapt, hunker down and continue to work behaviorally to do the right thing [and] find better ways to communicate… without making ourselves targeted because if [the federal government pulls] the money, we lose our mission entirely,” Murry said. “So it’s a real dilemma… we never imagined we’d be in this situation.”

Alisha Cayce, a third year doctoral student in neuroscience and research assistant under Murry, worries about the viability of her research efforts moving forward amid the administration’s DEI initiatives.

“We’re still sort of hunkering down and doing what we can, but there’s this sort of [impending] stress of whether or not we can continue forth with certain projects because we may or may not have the resources available to be able to carry them out,” said Cayce.

One of those projects includes a minority research program for high school students that Cayce is also the co-director of at USC.

“Seeing people like myself, seeing other minorities in a position where they could be in the future… being able to give them a different viewpoint of how their life could be, other than maybe the environment that they grew up in and may not be the best, shows them a way out,” she explained.

Cayce also worries about the impact the administration’s DEI initiatives will have on health equity in America in the future.

“There’s a large health equity gap within medicine,” Cayce said. “So having people like me who are very intentional with how we research… and how we incorporate more cultural sensitivity when we are doing research, it’s a huge blow to us and kind of discredits the value that we bring to science and medicine within our department.”

Despite the worries and challenges surrounding DEI, Cayce believes continuing to advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion should remain the focus.

“I just would hope that folks still have the sort of advocacy and drive that we had in 2020… to promote DEI,” she said.

In Cayce’s eyes, the fight doesn’t stop here – in fact, it’s just the beginning.

“You have to keep finding a way towards the… end goal, which is to create a more equitable space, which is increased health equity, which is to increase equity within science and even just across the board,” said Cayce. “We can’t allow this to completely knock us down. We have to keep finding ways to push forward.”

In pushing forward, USC released a statement announcing its plan to broaden its unifying values of “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)” to “community.” The university’s reasoning behind this change was stated to be “recent evolving federal legal guidance.”