American universities are facing another threat from the Trump administration, which intends to use a civil anti-fraud law to withdraw federal funding from colleges that promote diversity and inclusion policies, the Department of Justice announced Monday.
The False Claims Act will be enforced “when a federal contractor or recipient of federal funds knowingly violates civil rights laws,” Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche says in a memo.
Such violations could include allowing antisemitism on campus or letting transgender women compete in sports or use restrooms corresponding with their gender identity, Blanche writes in the two-page memo. Institutions also cannot employ DEI programs “that assign benefits or burdens on race, ethnicity, or national origin,” he writes.
The Department of Justice will broadly seek fines and damages in cases where violations are found and also will consider criminal enforcement for certain breaches, the memo said. The False Claims Act dates to the Civil War and allows the government to recover funds up to three times the damages it incurs, in addition to penalties, according to the DOJ.
The law also allows private citizens to file suit claiming the government was defrauded and to keep a portion of any money the federal government recovers, the memo notes, adding: “The Department strongly encourages these lawsuits.”
The Justice Department’s announcement is part of President Donald Trump’s broader fusillade against diversity initiatives, with the Education Department advising 60 colleges they are under investigation for potential “antisemitic harassment and discrimination.” The White House also is withholding billions of dollars in critical education funds, some now under court challenge.
Slamming the brakes on diversity efforts is giving whiplash to institutions still trying to figure out what the federal government will allow, an attorney who advises colleges told CNN. The Trump administration has decried as “illegal and immoral discrimination” DEI practices designed to advance racial, gender, class and other representation in public spaces.
“It just ends up being a kind of ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ proposition,” said Jodie Ferise, a higher education attorney and former faculty member at the University of Indianapolis.
Universities that promoted their campus diversity to prospective students and faculty as a recruitment tool – often maintaining public “dashboards” with demographic information – now are being advised to deemphasize those efforts.
“There’s no way I would advise a client to maintain a dashboard like that now, and that makes me sad,” Ferise said. “Those dashboards were in themselves a hiring tool: What that shows a diverse candidate is this is a place that maybe really wants me, a place where I could thrive.”
Attorney General Pamela Bondi backed the initiative unveiled Monday, warning universities that promote DEI policies are “putting their access to federal funds at risk,” according to a statement.
But while dozens of schools across the country have already appeased the administration – some abruptly ending DEI initiatives, laying off university staff and banning the use of words like “equality” and “gender” – such efforts haven’t always spared them from mass funding cuts.
In an effort to restore its more than $2 billion in blocked federal money, Harvard University in late April renamed its diversity, equity and inclusion office as the Office of Community and Campus Life.
The Ivy League school in Massachusetts also said it wouldn’t host or fund affinity group celebrations during commencement amid Education Department threats to cut more money if it did not cancel graduation celebrations that could separate students by race.
Even after those steps, the Trump administration announced another $450 million in federal funding cuts.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also has launched an investigation into Harvard, the Wall Street Journal reported, with a Republican commissioner saying the university’s efforts to diversify its faculty and scholarships designated for “underrepresented minorities” may be illegal discrimination.
A spokesperson for the commission told CNN the law prohibited them from publicly confirming any investigation. A Harvard spokesperson did not answer questions about the reported investigation and referred CNN to published comments from President Alan Garber saying, “We do not have quotas, whether based on race or ethnicity or any other characteristic.”
In a letter to Harvard last week, the Justice Department said the Trump administration was investigating whether the school’s admissions process had been used to defraud the government by not complying with a Supreme Court ruling that ended affirmative action, according to The New York Times.
The letter, which was reviewed by the Times, stated the investigation was launched under the False Claims Act.
