Trump team has Ivy League in sight as it gears up attacks on DEI

President-elect Donald Trump’s team has asked a key conservative activist to present a plan to slash federal funding for universities that refuse to scrap diversity and equity programs.

Christopher Rufo, who played a role in ousting Harvard’s first Black president Claudine Gay earlier this year, said he was invited to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate next week to deliver the sweeping proposal.

A senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, Rufo plans to attend an event that Russ Vought is holding this Wednesday at the South Florida private club, which has served as the center for Trump’s transition planning.

Rufo said he will meet with Trump administration officials and pitch how to tie federal funding to ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs at all public and private universities. Potential restrictions could threaten billions of dollars of federal funds that Ivy League colleges secure every year for research and other areas. Harvard alone received $686 million during the past academic year, its largest source of support for research.

“I hope the president turns the screws on DEI in the Ivy Leagues,” Rufo said in an interview. “This would put conditions on federal funding, especially the Ivy Leagues, if they practice discrimination regarding DEI.”

A Trump spokesman didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

Rufo says his proposal would forbid universities from favoring one racial, ethnic or gender over another, a practice he says violates the spirit of equal protection as well as Title VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act.

“If you don’t stop discriminating and violating the law, you will no longer be qualified for federal funding,” Rufo said. “I think that that is the way forward, and that universities would buckle immediately.”

Vought was tapped by Trump to run the White House Office of Management and Budget after encouragement from the world’s richest person, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy, who have been tasked with creating the Department of Government Efficiency to cut federal spending and bureaucracy. Musk has become a fierce opponent of DEI and this week applauded Walmart Inc.’s decision to pull back on diversity initiatives.

The retailer’s decision marks a significant reversal in Corporate America’s commitment to people of color, which accelerated after the murder of George Floyd by a White policeman in 2020. Some of the largest U.S. companies have backtracked on these efforts in recent months, partly under the attack of activists such as Robby Starbuck, who has threatened customer boycotts.

Universities also have been targeted for years over how they used race in admissions, with critics saying the policies unfairly penalize White and Asian American students. Harvard was a defendant in a landmark Supreme Court case, decided in June 2023, that banned considerations of race in admissions.

But attacks over DEI have ramped up in the past year as campuses were roiled by pro-Palestinian protests against Israel and its war in Gaza.

Investor Bill Ackman led a high profile campaign linking DEI efforts at Harvard to tolerance of antisemitism and suppression of free speech. Trump and Republican leaders have threatened college funding over pro-Palestinian protests and rising antisemitism on campuses.

Harvard has already rolled back some DEI programs. Earlier this year, the university announced changes for the process of appointments and promotions for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, where Gay previously served as dean. In external searches for faculty appointments, it now requests a broad statement of service instead of requiring a “Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging” statement.

Harvard has repeatedly said that antisemitism has no place on its campus. “Across the university we have intensified our efforts to listen to, learn from, support, and uplift our Jewish community, affirming their vital place at Harvard,” according to a statement in October.

Universities have defended DEI as a crucial tool to expand access for underrepresented groups and provide additional support.

Rufo said there’s broad support for much further restrictions, and he’s discussed his proposal in detail with Vice President-elect JD Vance, a Yale University graduate who has slammed elite colleges and previously proposed a massive increase in taxes on their endowments.

In June, Vance, a senator, co-sponsored the Dismantle DEI Act, legislation that, if passed, would eliminate all federal DEI programs.

Students at colleges also receive millions of dollars annually in grants and loans, money that could also be at risk under Rufo’s plan.

Targeting higher education is part of a larger assault on culture-war issues that Trump is considering across the federal government, Rufo said. Other measures would include denying federal contracts to companies that don’t end DEI efforts, according to Rufo.

Rufo, who attended Georgetown University, has long been a fixture in conservative circles.

Back in 2020, Trump ordered a ban on race and gender bias training programs for the federal government soon after the White House sought Rufo’s advice on the issue. The measure was later reversed by Joe Biden.

He also played a role in helping oust Gay from Harvard by questioning her academic work, saying she had plagiarized sections of her Ph.D dissertation. Gay was already facing pressure over how she’d handled antisemitism on campus after the 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas and ended up resigning in January. (Harvard investigated the plagiarism allegations and didn’t find any evidence of research misconduct by Gay.)

Rufo was also a close adviser to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his crackdown on teachings and books on gender, race, and sex in public schools and at the state’s New College of Florida. When DeSantis signed laws mandating such restrictions, he had Rufo stand alongside him at the ceremony.

“Now the fight returns to the White House, the center of power for the country as a whole,” he said. “I see the Florida play book expanded on the national stage.”