Trump wants to change colleges nationwide. GOP-led states offer a preview

Nearly a decade ago, intense protests over racial injustice rocked the University of Missouri’s flagship campus, leading to the resignation of two top administrators. The university then hired its first-ever vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity. Tensions were so high that football players were threatening a boycott and a graduate student went on hunger strike.

Today, the entire diversity office is gone, an example of changes sweeping universities in states led by conservatives, and a possible harbinger of things to come nationwide.

“I feel like that is the future, especially for the next four years of Trump’s presidency,” said Kenny Douglas, a history and Black studies major on the campus in Columbia, Missouri.

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, both conservative and liberal politicians say higher education changes in red parts of America could be a road map for the rest of the country.

Dozens of diversity, equity and inclusion programs have already closed in states including Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, North Carolina, Iowa, Nebraska and Texas. In some cases, lessons about racial and gender identity have been phased out. Supports and resources for underrepresented students have disappeared. Some students say changes in campus climate have led them to consider dropping out.

During his campaign, Trump vowed to end “wokeness” and “leftist indoctrination” in education. He pledged to dismantle diversity programs that he says amount to discrimination, and to impose fines on colleges "up to the entire amount of their endowment.”

Many conservatives have taken a similar view. Erec Smith, a research fellow at the free-market Cato Institute whose scholarship examines anti-racist activism and Black conservatism, said DEI sends the message that “whiteness is oppression." Diversity efforts are "thoroughly robbing Black people and other minorities of a sense of agency," he said.

The New College of Florida, a tiny liberal arts institution once known as the most progressive of Florida’s public campuses and a refuge for LGBTQ+ students, became a centerpiece for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ “war on woke.” DeSantis overhauled the school’s Board of Trustees in 2023, appointing a new majority of conservative allies, including culture war strategist Christopher Rufo.

Many faculty departed last year, leaving vacancies that the new leadership has filled with a variety of conservative academics — and non-academics, including British comedian and conservative commentator Andrew Doyle, who will be teaching a new course this January called “The Woke Movement.”

“This is only the beginning,” Rufo wrote in the forward to school President Richard Corcoran’s new book, “Storming the Ivory Tower.”

Trump’s opponents dismiss his depictions of liberal indoctrination on campuses as a fiction. But conservatives point to diversity programs and the student debt crisis as evidence colleges are out of touch.

“What happens if you are an institution that’s trying to change society?” asked Adam Kissel, a new trustee of the University of West Florida and a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation — the group behind Project 2025, a sweeping anti-DEI blueprint for a new GOP administration that Trump has disavowed while nominating some of its authors for administrative roles. “Society will push back on you.”

Pushback is exactly what DEI programs have faced.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, a Republican, in March signed into law a bill barring state funding for public colleges that advocate for “divisive concepts” including that someone should feel guilty because of their race or gender. The law also states people at schools and colleges must use the bathroom that matches their gender assigned at birth.

The effects of the anti-DEI law rippled through campuses including the University of Alabama and Auburn University, the state’s two largest four-year colleges. DEI offices and designated areas for LGBTQ+ and Black students closed when classes started in late August — just before the law took effect.

Dakota Grimes, a graduate student in chemistry, was disappointed when Auburn University closed the campus’ Pride Center, a designated safe space for LGBTQ+ people and allies. Grimes' organization, Sexuality and Gender Alliance, still meets regularly in the library, she said, but LGBTQ+ students don’t feel as welcome on campus. Students are subjected to homophobic and transphobic slurs, Grimes said.

“They don’t feel safe just sitting in the student center because of the kind of environment that a lot of students and even teachers create on campus,” Grimes said.

Julia Dominguez, a political science senior at the University of Alabama and president of the Hispanic-Latino Association, said funding for the group’s annual Hispanic Heritage Month festival was pulled two weeks before the event in September. Students who were once excited about being at a school that celebrates Latino culture, she said, are now feeling dejected and disillusioned.

The organization isn’t giving up, Dominguez said.

“We are still present,” Dominguez said. “We are still doing the work. It’s just harder now. But we’re not going to allow that to steal our joy because joy is resistance.”

In Idaho, DEI programs have been under attack for years, with Republican lawmakers blasting efforts to build an inclusive culture as "divisive and exclusionary." In recent sessions, the Legislature has blocked colleges and universities from using taxpayer dollars on campus DEI programs. A 2024 law banned written “diversity statements” in higher education hiring and student admissions.

In December, the State Board of Education scrapped DEI offices, causing shockwaves at the University of Idaho. Doctoral student Nick Koenig is considering leaving the state.

“Where do your true values lie?” asked Koenig, who decided to move to Idaho to research climate change after a Zoom call with the then-director of the school’s LGBT center. “It’s not with the students that are most marginalized.”

So far, nearly all of the threats to DEI have come from state legislatures, said Jeremy Young, of the free-expression group PEN America.

“There hasn’t been much support at the federal level to do anything," he said. "Now, of course, that’s going to change.”

Young anticipates that diversity considerations will be eliminated for research grants and possibly for accreditation. The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights typically investigates discrimination against people of color, but under Trump, that office could start investigating diversity programs that conservatives argue are discriminatory.

Republicans also may have more leeway to take action at the state level, thanks to an administration that's “going to get out of the way of red states and let them pursue these policies," said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow who studies higher education policy at the American Enterprise Institute.

Colleges are also cutting some programs or majors seen as unprofitable. Whether politics plays into decisions to eliminate certain courses of student remains to be seen.

Douglas, the University of Missouri student, is concerned. He said the promise of change that followed the earlier protests on the Columbia campus has dissipated.

This fall, a student group he is part of had to rename its Welcome Black BBQ because the university wanted it to be “welcoming to all.” The Legion of Black Collegians, which started in 1968 after students waved a Confederate flag at a football game, complained the change was erasing its visibility on campus.

For Douglas and many others, the struggle for civil rights that prompted diversity efforts isn’t a thing of the past. “White people might have moved past it, but Black people are still experiencing it,” he said.

Hollingsworth reported from Kansas City, Missouri; Gecker from San Francisco; Richert from Boise, Idaho; Morris from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. AP Education Writer Alia Wong contributed from Washington.

Student Kenny Douglas poses for a photo at the University of Missouri where he is a a history and Black studies major, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, inside the Student Diversity Center on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, sorts canned goods as he volunteers on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024 for the West Side Food Pantry near the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in the student lounge area of the LGBTQA office on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Student Kenny Douglas poses for a photo at the University of Missouri where he is a a history and Black studies major, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Student Kenny Douglas poses for a photo at the University of Missouri where he is a a history and Black studies major, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Jimmy Carter, who considered himself an outsider even as he sat in the Oval Office as the 39th U.S. president, was honored Thursday with the pageantry of a funeral at Washington National Cathedral before a second service and burial in his tiny Georgia hometown.

The first speaker was Joshua Carter, the former president's grandson, who recalled how Carter regularly taught Sunday school after leaving the White House.

“He built houses for people who needed homes,” Joshua said. “He eliminated diseases in forgotten places. He waged peace anywhere in the world, wherever he saw a chance. He loved people.”

Joshua said his grandfather explained his dedication by saying that, as a Christian and a follower of Jesus Christ, “he worshipped the Prince of Peace, and He commanded it.”

Steven Ford, the son of President Gerald Ford, spoke next and told Carter's children “God did a good thing when he made your dad."

Ford read a tribute from his own father, who died in 2006.

“By fate of a brief season, Jimmy Carter and I were rivals,” the eulogy said. “But for the many wonderful years that followed, friendship bonded us as no two presidents since John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.”

Carter defeated Ford in 1976 but the pair, and their first ladies, became close friends, and Carter eulogized Ford at his own funeral.

President Joe Biden, who was the first sitting senator to endorse Carter's 1976 campaign, will also eulogize his fellow Democrat 11 days before he leaves office. All of Carter's living successors attended the Washington funeral, including President-elect Donald Trump, who paid his respects in the Capitol Rotunda on Wednesday.

The rare gathering of commanders in chief offered an unusual moment of comity for the nation in a factionalized, hyper-partisan era. They met privately before the service began. As Trump went to his seat, he shook hands with Mike Pence in a rare interaction with his former vice president. The two men had a falling out over Pence's refusal to help Trump overturn his election defeat to Biden four years ago.

Trump was seated next to former President Barack Obama and the two could be seen chatting for several minutes. Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump in November, entered afterwards but did not interact with him.

Days of formal ceremonies and remembrances from political leaders, business titans and rank-and-file citizens have honored Carter, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100, for decency and using a prodigious work ethic to do more than obtain political power.

The proceedings began on Thursday morning as military service members carried Carter’s flag-draped casket down the east steps of the U.S. Capitol, where the former president had laid in state, to be transported to the cathedral. There was also a 21-gun salute.

At the cathedral, the Armed Forces Chorus sang the hymn “Be Still My Soul” before Carter’s casket was brought inside.

Ted Mondale, son of Walter Mondale, Carter’s vice president, is expected to read a eulogy his father wrote for Carter before his own death in 2021.

Mourners also will hear from Stu Eizenstat, who was a top White House staffer for Carter, and 92-year-old Andrew Young, a former Atlanta mayor, congressman and U.N. ambassador during the Carter administration. Carter outlived much of his Cabinet and inner circle, but remained especially close to Young — a friendship that brought together a white Georgian and Black Georgian who grew up in the era of Jim Crow segregation.

Thursday will conclude six days of national rites that began in Plains, Georgia, where Carter was born in 1924, lived most of his life and died after 22 months in hospice care. Ceremonies continued in Atlanta and Washington, where Carter, a former Naval officer, engineer and peanut farmer, has lain in state since Tuesday.

Long lines of mourners waited several hours in frigid temperatures to file past his flag-draped casket in the rotunda, as tributes focused as much on Carter's humanitarian work after leaving the White House as what he did as president from 1977 to 1981.

After the morning service in Washington, Carter's remains, his four children and extended family will return to Georgia on a Boeing 747 that serves as Air Force One when the sitting president is aboard.

The outspoken Baptist, who campaigned as a born-again Christian, will then be remembered in an afternoon funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church, the small edifice where he taught Sunday School for decades after leaving the White House and where his casket will sit beneath a wooden cross he fashioned in his own woodshop.

Music — sacred, patriotic and popular — will feature prominently throughout the day for the evangelical president who campaigned with the Allman Brothers Band, befriended Willie Nelson and quoted Bob Dylan in his 1977 inaugural address. In Washington, the U.S. Marine Orchestra and Armed Forces Chorus will sing “Eternal Father, Strong to Save," the Navy hymn, for the only U.S. Naval Academy graduate to become commander in chief. Country music stars Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood, who succeeded Jimmy and Rosalyn Carter as ambassadors for Habitat for Humanity, will perform John Lennon's “Imagine,” reprising their role at the former first lady's funeral in 2023.

Hymns include “All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name” and, in Plains, “Let there be Peace on Earth.”

Following a final ride through his hometown, past the old train depot that served as his 1976 presidential campaign headquarters, he will be buried on family land in a plot next to Rosalynn, to whom Carter was married for more than 77 years.

Carter, who won the presidency promising good government and honest talk for an electorate disillusioned by the Vietnam War and Watergate, signed significant legislation and negotiated a landmark peace agreement between Israel and Egypt. But Carter also presided over inflation, rising interest rates and international crises — most notably the Iran hostage situation with Americans held in Tehran for more than a year. Carter lost a landslide to Republican Ronald Reagan in 1980.

Two years later he and Rosalynn established The Carter Center in Atlanta as a nongovernmental organization that took them across the world fighting disease, mediating conflict, monitoring elections and advocating for racial and gender equity. The center, where Carter lay in repose before coming to Washington, currently has 3,000 employees and contractors globally.

Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in Washington, Michael Liedtke in Indian Wells, California, and Kate Brumback in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Former President Barack Obama, from left, speaks with President-elect Donald Trump as his wife Melania Trump looks on before the casket of former President Jimmy Carter arrives for a state funeral at the National Cathedral, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, in Washington. (Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via AP, Pool)

Vice President Kamala Harris, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, former First Lady Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, former first lady Laura Bush, former President Barack Obama, former President and President-elect Donald Trump, former first lady Melania Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and others, attend the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

A joint services body bearer team carries the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, to head to Washington National Cathedral for a State Funeral. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

A joint services body bearer team carries the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025, to head to Washington National Cathedral for a State Funeral. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, Pool)

Former Vice President Al gore sits with former Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen before the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Former President Barack Obama talks with President-elect Donald Trump, next to Melania Trump, as they arrive to attend the state funeral for former President Jimmy Carter at Washington National Cathedral in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter is carried from the U.S. Capitol on the way to a state funeral at the National Cathedral, in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

President elect Donald Trump and his wife Melania Trump visit the flag draped casket of the late former President Jimmy Carter as he lies in state at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump pause at the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter as he lies in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

The Carter family pay their respects during a ceremony as the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter lies in state, at the Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2025, in Washington. Carter died Dec. 29 at the age of 100. (Kent Nishimura/The New York Times via AP, Pool)

FILE - President Jimmy Carter prepares to make a national television address from the Oval Office at the White House, April 25, 1980, in Washington, on the failed mission to rescue the Iran hostages. (AP Photo, File)

President-elect Donald Trump and Melania Trump pause at the flag-draped casket of former President Jimmy Carter as he lies in state in the rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. (Andrew Harnik/Pool via AP)