West Chester University changes name of DEI office, admits it will still keep the same mission
One school official called the decision ‘preemptive compliance.’
‘The goal was to safeguard our work,’ the official said.
West Chester University in Pennsylvania has changed the title of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) office, but a university official has admitted that it will keep the same goal of promoting DEI.
The new Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance was so named a few days before President Donald Trump’s inauguration, as reported by The Quad, the university’s student paper.
Dr. Tracey Robinson, Vice President of the school’s Division of Access, Compliance and Engagement, announced the change in a memo, and claimed the new office name was a form of “preemptive compliance,” The Quad wrote.
“The goal was to safeguard our work and it was to ensure that there is some opportunity to describe and categorize the work that we do . . .Was it an offensive move? Yes, it was, it was to have some choice before it was no longer a choice,” she continued.
She added that the new office will keep providing the same DEI programs and initiatives despite the name change.
President Trump signed an executive order purging DEI from the federal government on his first day in office, with wide-ranging consequences.
As part of Trump’s anti-DEI efforts, the Department of Education has cut off “over $600 million in grants to institutions and nonprofits that were using taxpayer funds to train teachers and education agencies on divisive ideologies.”
A top Department official, Craig Trainor, also warned K-12 schools and colleges and universities they must cease promoting DEI.
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Several schools have scrubbed DEI mentions from their websites following Trump’s executive order, including the Universities of Stanford and Northeastern.
The University of North Carolina has also stopped forcing students to take classes that focus on DEI in order to graduate following Trump’s directive.
Campus Reform has reached out to West Chester University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.
