President Ted Carter announces changes to DEI programs during University Senate meeting
President Ted Carter announces changes Feb. 27, 2025, to two campus offices focused on diversity, equity and inclusion and the elimination of more than a dozen staff positions.
- Ohio State University is closing two diversity, equity and inclusion offices and eliminating 16 staff positions.
- Student groups and alumni associations are speaking out against the decision, calling it a “step backward” and “devastating blow.”
- A protest against the office closures is planned for Tuesday on Ohio State’s campus.
Several student groups and alumni associations are speaking out after Ohio State University announced last week that it would close two campus offices focused on diversity, equity and inclusion and eliminate more than a dozen staff positions as a result of Trump administration directives.
Ohio State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Center for Belonging and Social Change will have 60 days to sunset its programs and services starting from Feb. 28. The Office of Institutional Equity will also be renamed the Office of Civil Rights Compliance. Sixteen staff positions will be eliminated as part of the closures.
The changes, announced Thursday by Ohio State President Ted Carter, come as a direct result of several mandates from the Trump administration to wipe DEI practices from colleges and universities.
Hundreds of students, faculty, staff and community members are expected to gather Tuesday at 1 p.m. on the Oval at Ohio State for a protest against the office closures and Ohio Senate Bill 1, a controversial higher education bill working its way through the Statehouse.
In a “Dear Colleague” letter sent on Feb. 14, the U.S. Department of Education gave schools an ultimatum: Eliminate “race-based decision-making” from their campuses by the end of the month or risk losing federal funding.
The Ohio Student Association — a statewide advocacy group with college chapters that focus on racial, economic and educational justice — responded with its own “Dear Admin” letter Monday. The letter, sent to all 14 Ohio public university presidents and boards of trustees, rebuked “anticipatory and gratuitous compliance to unjust politicized mandates” as “cowardly and morally reprehensible.”
“Your hands are not tied. These threats are not yet law, unenforceable, yet we watch our institutions fall like dominoes rolling back the clock on progress, bending the knee before they even have to,” the letter read. “When you opt to keep your opposition behind closed doors, you are choosing comfortable cowardice, you are choosing safety for yourselves at the cost of your students, you are choosing complicity in grave injustice.”
Ohio universities have been the stage for multiple fights for civil rights. Miami University was the site for the 1964 Freedom Summer training, when students helped register Black voters in Mississippi. Kent State University was the first institution to recognize Black History Month in 1970, six years before it earned federal recognition.
Students, the letter read, are looking to their universities “as Ohio becomes increasingly more hostile to them.”
“As you turn away, feelings of betrayal overwhelm students as our campuses become equally inhospitable,” it read.
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The Ohio Student Association was not the only student group to speak out against the decision. Ohio State’s Undergraduate Student Government President Bobby McAlpine and Vice President Justin Robinson issued a statement Friday calling the office closures “an undeniable step backward.”
“Diversity, Equity, Belonging and Inclusion are not just institutional initiatives,” the statement read, “they are commitments to ensuring that every student, regardless of background, has access to the mentorship, scholarships, career opportunities and resources they need to thrive.
“The removal of these programs is not just symbolic, it has real, harmful consequences for students across our campus.”
McAlpine and Robinson said they and other USG members will continue to fight for students’ opinions to be heard by holding OSU’s administration accountable and advocating at the Ohio Statehouse and in Washington, D.C.
“This university is stronger because of its diverse student body, and we will not allow external pressures to dictate the values we uphold as a campus community,” the statement read.
Ohio State’s Black Alumni Society President Chibundu Nnake penned a statement over the weekend on behalf of the organization also denouncing the decision. Nnake said the closure of these offices is both a “devastating blow” and “a significant step backward for our entire community.”
“The manner in which this decision was made — seemingly overnight, with minimal consultation with key stakeholders, including student groups, alumni, and the very staff impacted — is unacceptable and disrespectful,” Nnake said. “It stands in stark contrast to the values of transparency, shared governance, and community engagement that Ohio State claims to uphold.”
Nnake noted the timing of the announcement, at the close of Black History Month, “demonstrates a profound lack of sensitivity and understanding of the impact on the Black community at Ohio State.”
Other flagship and land grant public universities, including those in states with political landscapes like Ohio, have chosen “different, less damaging paths,” Nnake said. He pointed to the University of Michigan, University of Virginia, University of Texas and University of Florida as peer institutions that “have sought to comply with the letter of the law without abandoning the spirit of inclusion.”
“Ohio State’s decision to be an outlier, taking the most drastic and damaging path, sends a chilling message about our priorities and where Black students, faculty, and staff stand within them,” Nnake said.
Sheridan Hendrix is a higher education reporter for The Columbus Dispatch. Sign up for Extra Credit, her education newsletter, here.
@sheridan120