Feds cancel over $7.5M in ASU DEI grants, including project for 'gendered racial equity' in AI

Arizona State University has lost over $7.5 million in National Science Foundation (NSF) grants related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), according to a new report.

AZ Free News reported on Sunday that the public university in Tempe received five grants worth $7,659,588 that the federal government terminated in April and May.

[RELATED: LSU spent over $2 million on DEI programs favoring ‘underrepresented’ students]

One of the funded projects was titled “Black Girls as Creators: an intersectional learning ecosystem toward gendered racial equity in Artificial Intelligence education.”

“This project will work with artificial intelligence (AI) creators and Black girls, aged 9-14, to expand the range of perspectives and voices that are a part of AI technology,” an abstract on the NSF’s website reads. 

“The project will include after school and summer camps for both Black girls and the AI creators to work together on the design and creation of AI projects,” it states.

The university received $2,404,767 for the project.

Two other terminated ASU projects funded research to increase gender and racial equity in STEM, at a cost of $2,999,743 and $931,058, respectively. 

“Currently, students who are white, affluent, and identify as male tend to develop a greater interest in and pursuit of science and computing-related careers compared to their Black, Latinx, Native American, and female-identifying peers,” one description says.

Another project, titled “Increasing the Effectiveness of Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion-Focused Institutional Change Teams through a Community of Transformation,” cost $590,387.

[RELATED: Faculty form group to defend DEI at the University of Alabama in response to anti-DEI law]

Since President Trump took office in January, many colleges and universities have faced cuts to federal grant funding for DEI-related projects. 

A report from July revealed that the NSF has canceled $1.1 billion in grants, 90 percent of which funded DEI projects.

The U.S. Department of Education ended $15 million in funding on Feb. 7 to California State University, Los Angeles, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of St. Thomas for DEI-related subjects, such as “white privilege” and “systemic racism.”

In the same month, the department announced it had terminated $600 million in funding for “divisive ideologies,” such as critical race theory, DEI, “social justice activism,” anti-racism, and “instruction on white privilege and white supremacy.”

“[M]any of these grants included teacher and staff recruiting strategies implicitly and explicitly based on race,” the department said at the time.

Campus Reform contacted Arizona State University for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.