Rutgers cancels DEI-based conference in response to Trump executive orders
Rutgers University has canceled a virtual 'HBCUs and Registered Apprenticeship Mini-Conference' following President Trump's anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) executive orders.
On Jan. 23, the Rutgers University Center for Minority Serving Institutions sent an email providing an update about the event's cancelation, specifically pointing to Trump's removal of 'radical' DEI programs from the federal government.
A public university in New Brunswick, New Jersey has canceled a virtual “HBCUs and Registered Apprenticeship Mini-Conference” following President Trump’s anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) executive orders.
On Jan. 23, the Rutgers University Center for Minority Serving Institutions sent an email providing an update about the event’s cancelation, specifically pointing to Trump’s removal of “radical” DEI programs from the federal government.
”Unfortunately, due to President Trump’s Executive Orders (EOs) titled ‘Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,’ issued on January 20, 2025, and ‘Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,’ issued on January 21, 2025, we have been asked to cease all work under the auspices of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility HUB at Jobs for the Future, which the U.S. Department of Labor funds,” Executive Director Marybeth Gasman wrote.
”We have so much happening at the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions, and we can’t wait to engage with you in the future,” she added.
Trump specifically denounced the DEI initiatives implemented by President Biden as “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.”
Similarly, Trump’s executive order on “Ending Illegal Discrimination and
Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” further condemns DEI as a whole.
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”Illegal DEI and DEIA [Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility] policies not only violate the text and spirit of our longstanding Federal civil-rights laws, they also undermine our national unity, as they deny, discredit, and undermine the traditional American values of hard work, excellence, and individual achievement in favor of an unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system,” the Jan. 21 document reads.
The Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions is affiliated with the Graduate School of Education and is considered a part of the the Samuel D. Proctor Institute
for Leadership, Equity, and Justice.