History PhD students Grace Maria Eberhardt and B.W. Lawton wrote an op-ed in the News Gazette about Trump's federal ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Eberhardt is also a graduate minor in Latina/Latino studies.
Movement from the margins: Trump’s federal ban on DEI and the legacy of ethnic studies
On the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration, among the many executive orders he put in place was to end birthright citizenship and all federally funded diversity, equity and inclusion organizations. Trump recently stated that the Fourteenth Amendment was not meant to be an “automatic citizenship for illegal aliens” but was “only meant for children of slaves.”
The language used by the administration reflects an alternate interpretation of U.S. history as we know it. These developments coincide with the end of fact-checking on social-media platforms such as Meta, which will inevitably lead to the rise of misinformation. Despite these efforts to ban DEI, marginalized students still find ways to learn about their history.
Trump’s recent activities reflect a trend brewing in the country for the last decade and a half. In 2010, Arizona Public School Superintendent Tom Horne passed a bill that banned ethnic studies, most notably Mexican American Studies. That program was an eye-opening experience for many students, as it was the first time many of them saw themselves in the curriculum.
The ban on ethnic studies extended to book bans and even questioning the lessons by a Chicano English teacher who incorporated Latinx figures such as Che Guevara in his courses. By 2017, federal Judge A. Wallace Tashima overturned the ban on ethnic studies, stating the passage of this law was “motivated by anti-Mexican attitudes.”
In 2023, Florida banned DEI initiatives in its public university system. The ban resulted in changes to the state’s African American history curriculum, including a reinterpretation of the effects of chattel slavery to include that enslaved people gained beneficial skills.
Last year, the state’s board of education permanently rid the college system of its policies. The NAACP and the Florida Education Association condemned the new state curriculum for obscuring the realities of the past.