“We thrive on diversity. We see diversity of backgrounds and perspectives as essential to learning, discovery, and creation.” This statement, taken from Georgia Tech’s stated Values and Beliefs, attests that the Institute seeks to foster diversity and inclusivity as a means to creating a more innovative community.
On the other hand, the Trump administration seeks to remove any presence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) from college campuses, threatening in a series of Executive Orders and a Dear Colleague letter to cut funding if colleges do not comply. This decision prompted Georgia Tech to make drastic changes concerning campus resources available to students, which will likely continue to further impact students at Georgia Tech.
FEDERAL DECISIONS
On Inauguration Day, President Trump issued an executive order titled Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing, stating that the previous administration had “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs” that “furthered DEIs [sic] infiltration of the Federal Government”. The order claimed that Biden’s DEI programs promoted ‘public waste and shameful discrimination’ and outlined a plan for eliminating DEI and Accessibility programs on a federal level. This plan involved firing DEI and environmental justice employees and providing the executive branch with a list of employees involved with DEI training or programs. On February 14th, a “Dear Colleague” letter from the Department of Education Office for Civil Rights stated that educational institutions that did not comply with new civil rights orders within 14 days would “face potential loss of federal funding”.
The Dear Colleague letter and Trump’s Executive Order argue that DEI initiatives provide an unfair advantage to some. However, Biden’s executive order, which was referenced in Trump’s order, defined who is affected by DEI programming. This order defines equity as “the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.” While not directly mentioned in this definition, women and gender minorities are traditionally included in the definition of DEI.
By this metric, DEI affects many people. For instance, among Georgia Tech students, only 20% identify as both white and male. Given that some of these white, male students have other characteristics that fall into DEI categories, more than 80% of Georgia Tech’s student body may be affected by these changes.
Biden’s order maintains that DEI is not about prejudice against one group of people, but rather states that equal opportunity should not just belong to the group that has traditionally been advantaged, stating that “Entrenched disparities in our laws and public policies, and in our public and private institutions, have often denied that equal opportunity to individuals and communities”.
“Entrenched disparities in our laws and public policies, and in our public and private institutions, have often denied that equal opportunity to individuals and communities.”
In contrast, the Dear Colleague letter stated that DEI policy is “insidious” and “repugnant”, arguing that racism is not systemic in United States policies and that institutions that teach this “toxically indoctrinated… false premise” should be reprimanded. In addition, the letter written by former white-collar defense attorney Craig Turner alleges that current DEI policies place a burden of guilt on white students and lower admission rates of white and Asian students.
THE INSTITUTE’S RESPONSE
Shifting DEI policies are not new to the University System of Georgia, which began rolling back DEI policies in 2023, and Georgia Tech began silently erasing or changing DEI programs before the Dear Colleague Letter. On January 29th, a web search for CEED, the previous Center for Engineering Education and Diversity, would reroute to different Georgia Tech webpages or would show results changing the D in the acronym from Diversity to Development.
Georgia Tech President Angel Cabrera sent a letter to Georgia Tech students, faculty, and staff shortly after the Dear Colleague Letter was issued, maintaining that Georgia Tech “does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, or national origin and complies with all state and federal laws” and emphasized the potential impact of changes to funding.
In response to these funding threats, Georgia Tech has restructured several resource centers, including the Women’s Resource Center, LGBTQIA Resource Center, Intercultural Student Center, and Black Culture, Innovation, and Technology, consolidating them into “Arts, Students, and Belonging”. Attempting to visit websites for any of these centers will produce a “page not found” notice, and the signage in the Smithgall Building, the previous home of several resource centers, was changed on February 16th to remove the names of the restructured programs. This rapid and ambiguous restructuring left much of the campus community confused, which was partially addressed in a series of town halls, led by Georgia Tech Vice President for Student Engagement and Wellbeing Luoluo Hong.
The newly restructured centers provided resources for underserved communities, but none of them were exclusionary towards a specific group in the ways that the Dear Colleague letter alleged—in fact, Dr. Hong attested that 50% of the people who used services in the Women’s Resource Center identified as men.
The Dear Colleague specified that hits to funding would take place within two weeks of issuance if institutes did not comply–a timeline that put Georgia Tech in a difficult position. The threat of a loss of federal funding is incredibly powerful at Georgia Tech, which receives as much as $1.2 billion annually in federal funding for research. A loss of federal funding would cripple the Institute’s operations; yet, the Dear Colleague Letter’s threats are not codified into law.
LOCAL LAW AND STUDENT RESISTANCE
To many students from diverse backgrounds, DEI organizations provide a way to connect with a community and their own culture in an often intimidating campus, while Trump’s administration maintains that these communities serve as a form of discrimination against people who do not belong to minority groups. Students such as Diego Shipmon believe that DEI organizations are vital to student success and education.
“As much as we wanted to be outraged and say ‘DEI is a human right’…our argument for legislators was we need these DEI programs so that people will choose Georgia schools and choose Georgia careers.”
Shipmon is one of the founders of GT Students for Belonging, a new student organization seeking to preserve DEI programs and the right for students to express themselves at Georgia Tech. Shipmon, who identifies as Queer and biracial, states that resources for students who are in minority groups are not just important, but vital:
“These are life-sustaining services…. If students can’t show up to school and know that they have a safe space, and by safe space, I mean a place where people respect their cultural identity, and people who, you know, share their cultural identity are with them. If they don’t feel like they can interface with things that are familiar to them, if they can’t feel like they can make a home here because they don’t have the resources that they’re used to having, that their community would have provided to them… then there is no education, and there is no learning.”
Alongside Shipmon’s leadership, GT Students for Belonging was one of the student groups that had a significant impact on blocking the Georgia Senate Bill 120 (SB 120). This bill had the potential to limit student organizations and clubs from participating in anything the state deemed DEI and was condemned by civil rights groups as an infringement on free speech and for its potential to increase discrimination and harassment based on race and sexuality.
Georgia Tech students attended the senate hearings and testified against the bill’s passing. According to Shipmon, their strategy mostly focused on the potential impact on human capital that the bill could have: “As much as we wanted to be outraged and say ‘DEI is a human right’… essentially our argument for legislators was we need these DEI programs so that people will choose Georgia schools and choose Georgia careers.” He argued that students who now do not have the support they need “are going to choose to go to schools in more liberal parts of the country, and that just takes valuable capital” away from Georgia. SB 120 and bills with similar verbiage were blocked from passing in the 2025 Georgia Legislative session, thanks in part to Georgia Tech students’ efforts.
Shipmon shared the following advice to students who may be affected by these DEI changes: “Stay motivated….I think it’s really hard to get involved, especially when it comes to like actually making change, because this work moves really quickly…. My advice would be not letting that discourage you, not letting yourself get daunted by the scope of everything that’s going on, there’s always one small thing you can do. There’s always one small phone banking, one small letter writing, one small event that you can go to, one small something.”
