WASHINGTON — U.S. Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, the only woman on NATO’s military committee, was fired over the weekend by the Trump administration, U.S. officials said Monday.

Although no reason was given, officials said it was apparently tied to comments she has made that supported diversity in the force.

According to the officials, Chatfield got a call from Adm. Christopher Grady, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was told the administration wanted to go in a different direction with the job.

The officials said they believe the decision was made last week by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, but it was unclear whether he received any direction from President Donald Trump. Three U.S. officials spoke about the firing on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Chatfield is the third top female officer to be fired since Trump took office. Hegseth announced in February that he was firing the chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti. And Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan just a day after he was sworn in.

Trump and Hegseth have been vocal in their insistence that so-called woke policies are dead. There has been a vigorous campaign to remove leaders who promoted diversity, equity and inclusion, and to erase DEI programs and online content.

Chatfield was on a list of senior military officers targeted as “woke” by the conservative American Accountability Foundation, which sent a letter to Hegseth saying that “purging the woke from the military is imperative.”

Chatfield, a Navy helicopter pilot who also commanded a joint reconstruction team in Afghanistan, had been serving as one of the 32 representatives on NATO’s military committee. The panel is the primary source of military advice to the North Atlantic Council and NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group, according to NATO. It serves as the link between the political decision-makers and NATO’s military structure..

Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said he was “deeply disturbed” by the firing.

“Trump’s relentless attacks on our alliances and his careless dismissal of decorated military officials make us less safe and weaken our position across the world,” Warner said in a post on X.

The campaign to erase DEI programs and online content has been met with questions from lawmakers, local leaders and citizens angered by the removal of military heroes and historic mentions from Defense Department websites and social media pages.

The accountability foundation complained in the letter to Hegseth that those responsible for DEI policies “must be dismissed,” adding that military leaders should be focused on cultivating lethality, not on fostering diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks.

The letter said Chatfield posted supportive comments on LinkedIn about a diversity summit and gave a speech in 2015 at Women’s Equality Day. The group quoted her as saying that investing in empowering women can unlock human potential.

And they also said she was quoted as saying, “our diversity is our strength” — a phrase that Hegseth has repeatedly condemned.

A native of Garden Grove, California, Chatfield graduated from Boston University and received her master’s degree from Harvard University and a doctorate from the University of San Diego.

She deployed to the Pacific and the Persian Gulf as a pilot. She later served as the senior military assistant to the supreme allied commander Europe. She was awarded a Bronze Star.

CHICAGO — A federal judge has temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing parts of President Donald Trump’s executive orders aimed at curbing diversity, equity and inclusion efforts among federal contractors and grant recipients.

Judge Matthew Kennelly of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois halted the Labor Department from requiring federal contractors or grant recipients from certifying that they don’t operate any programs in violation of Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders.

That certification provision has stepped up pressure on companies and other organizations to revisit their DEI practices because if the government were to determine they violated the provision, they would be subject to crippling financial penalties under the False Claims Act.

Thursday’s ruling is in response to a lawsuit filed by Chicago Women in Trades, a nonprofit founded in 1981 that helps prepare women for work in skilled construction trades and has several contracts with the Department of Labor. There was no immediate reaction from Chicago Women in Trades to Kennelly’s order. The Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A hearing on Chicago Women in Trades’ bid for a longer-lasting halt on Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders is scheduled for April 10.

The organization’s lawsuit is one of several challenging Trump’s executive orders targeting DEI programs in both the private and public sectors.

Trump signed an order his first day in office directing federal agencies to terminate all “equity-related” grants or contracts. He signed a follow-up order that included a requirement that federal contractors and grantees certify that they don’t “operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.”

Kennelly’s decision comes nearly two weeks after an appeals court lifted a broader nationwide injunction against Trump’s anti-DEI executive orders in a separate lawsuit in Baltimore. But Thursday’s ruling is limited in scope because Kennelly declined to extend the temporary restraining order to other federal agencies.

Chicago Women in Trades, which filed its case against the Trump administration last month, argued that the president’s executive orders on DEI are so broad and vague that the organization had no way to ensure compliance, and thus they threaten its core mission.

Kennelly wrote that Chicago Women in Trades, which is being represented by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, was likely to succeed in its arguments that parts of the executive orders are a violation of free speech rights and are unconstitutionally vague.

Although the government argued that the certification provision “implicates only illegal DEI programs, it has studiously declined to shed any light on what this means. The answer is anything but obvious,” Kennelly wrote.

Kennelly wrote that he extended his order to all Labor Department contractors and grant recipients because the vagueness of Trump’s executive orders, coupled with the threat of financial penalties, would likely pressure organizations to curb DEI programs in potential violation of free speech rights.

Rather than face potentially crippling penalties, “it is likely that many of these grantees will take the safer route and choose to simply stop speaking on anything remotely related to what the government might consider to promote DEI or equity. A nationwide restraining order is appropriate to protect grantees who cannot afford the risks inherent in biting the hand that feeds them,” Kennelly wrote.

The judge also blocked the DOL from freezing or canceling any funding with Chicago Women in Trades, and the Trump administration from pursuing any False Claims Act enforcement against them.

During a hearing on Tuesday, the Trump administration argued that Chicago Women in Trades’ motion for relief was premature because its arguments rely on speculation as to how the executive orders will be implemented.

But Chicago Women in Trades noted in court filings that it has multiple communications from the Department of Labor directing them to ensure compliance with both DEI executive orders. The organization also said in court and has already lost a subcontract with a contractor trying to comply with the executive order.

Chicago Women in Trades has a long history of partnering with companies, state and federal agencies and other industry stakeholders to provide guidance and training on best practices for recruiting and retaining women in the trades — including training to combat bias and harassment that is prevalent in one of the country’s most male-dominated industries.

Its grant work with the federal government dates back years, including two grants awarded under the first Trump administration under the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations, which aims to expand pathways for women seeking to enter skilled trades.

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The Associated Press’ women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON — Schools and colleges across the U.S. face a Friday deadline to end diversity programs or risk having their federal money pulled by the Trump administration, yet few are openly rushing to make changes. Many believe they’re on solid legal ground, and they know it would be all but unprecedented — and extremely time-consuming — for the government to cut off funding.

State officials in Washington and California urged schools not to make changes, saying it doesn’t change federal law and doesn’t require any action. New York City schools have taken the same approach and said district policies and curriculum have not changed.

Leaders of some colleges shrugged the memo off entirely. Antioch University ’s chief said “most of higher education” won’t comply with the memo unless federal law is changed. Western Michigan University’s president told his campus to “please proceed as usual.”

A memo issued Feb. 14 by President Donald Trump’s administration, formally known as a Dear Colleague Letter, gave schools two weeks to halt any practice that treats people differently because of their race.

Opponents say it’s an overreach meant to have a chilling effect. The guidance appears to forbid everything from classroom lessons on racism to colleges’ efforts to recruit in diverse areas, and even voluntary student groups like Black student unions.

Education organizations have been urging a measured approach, warning institutions not to make any hasty cuts that would be difficult to undo. Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, is telling colleges that if they were in compliance with federal law before the memo, they still are.

“There’s nothing to act on until we see the administration or its agencies try to stop something,” Mitchell said. “And then we’ll have the argument.”

A loss of federal money would be devastating for schools and colleges, but imposing that penalty would not be quick or simple.

The Education Department office that conducts civil rights investigations had fewer than 600 employees last year — before the Trump administration began cutting staff — while the U.S. has more than 18,000 school districts and 6,000 colleges.

Even when a school or state faces an investigation, it can take years to terminate funding. Under former President Joe Biden, the Education Department tried to pull federal money from Michigan’s education agency after finding it violated the rights of students with disabilities. The investigation began in 2022 and is still tied up in federal court.

“I hope very much that schools charged with providing inclusive, equal education to every student in their school community will stand for that principle,” said Catherine Lhamon, who led the department’s Office for Civil Rights under Biden.

Still, some education leaders say resistance is too risky. At the University of Cincinnati, President Neville G. Pinto said officials are evaluating jobs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, and removing DEI references from school websites.

“Given this new landscape, Ohio public and federally supported institutions like ours have little choice but to follow the laws that govern us,” Pinto wrote.

Tony Frank, chancellor of the Colorado State University system, wrote in a campus letter that he weighed taking a stand against the department. But he advised the system’s campuses to comply, saying there’s too much at stake for students and staff. “If we gamble here and are wrong, someone else will pay the price,” he wrote.

In many Republican-led states, education chiefs applauded the memo.

“We never felt it was appropriate to use race in making these types of decisions in the first case, so I do not foresee any interruptions in our day-to-day business,” Alabama’s state superintendent, Eric G. Mackey, said in a statement released by the Trump administration.

The memo said schools have promoted DEI efforts often at the expense of white and Asian American students.

It doesn’t carry the weight of law but explains how the new administration will interpret nondiscrimination laws. It dramatically expands a 2023 Supreme Court decision barring the use of race in college admissions to all aspects of education — including, hiring, promotion, scholarships, housing, graduation ceremonies and campus life.

The guidance is being challenged in court by the American Federation of Teachers, which said the memo violates free speech laws.

While some schools are keeping quiet out of fear of being targeted, many leaders also are still struggling to grasp the implications.

“We are looking to our attorney general for guidance because it’s very confusing,” said Christine Tucci Osorio, superintendent of the North St. Paul School District in Minnesota. When a teacher asked if their school could still mark African American History Month, she assured them they could.

Despite concerns that schools would rush to comply, it appears “cooler heads are largely prevailing,” said Liz King, senior director for the education equity program at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

“Once a school sends the message that they are not going to stand up for a member, a community within their school, that is broken trust, that is a lost relationship,” King said.

Trump has vowed to use education funding as political leverage on several fronts, threatening cuts for schools that do not get in line with his agenda on topics including transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports and instruction related to race.

Usually, civil rights investigations by the Education Department take at least six months and often much longer. If a school is found in violation of federal law, department policy offers a chance to come into compliance and sign a resolution — typically a 90-day process.

Only if a school refuses to comply can the department move to revoke federal money. That can be done in the Education Department through a court-like process decided by an administrative law judge. If the judge decides the penalty is justified, the school can appeal it to the education secretary and, after that, challenge it in court.

Instead of handling it internally, the department can also refer cases to the Justice Department for prosecution. That route is no faster.

The last time the Education Department was granted approval to cut federal funding was in 1992, against the Capistrano Unified School District in California, which was found to have retaliated against a teacher for filing sex discrimination complaints.

Before the penalty was carried out, the district reinstated the teacher and effectively ended the case. It never lost any money.

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Gecker reported from San Francisco, and Mumphrey from Phoenix.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON — A Senate committee voted Thursday to advance Linda McMahon’s nomination to serve as President Donald Trump’s education secretary, bringing her closer to leading an agency the Republican president wants to shut down.

The Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions voted 12-11 along party lines to send her nomination to be considered by the full Senate.

At her confirmation hearing, McMahon said she wants to “reorient” the Education Department. Since his campaign, Trump has called for the department to be abolished, but McMahon acknowledged that only Congress could shut it down completely.

“We’d like to make sure that we are presenting a plan that I think our senators could get on board with,” she said.

Pressed on the fate of the agency’s core initiatives, McMahon said Trump wants them to be more efficient but isn’t out to defund them. She suggested certain roles could be moved to other agencies, saying the department’s civil rights arm could go to the Justice Department.

She pledged to preserve federal Title I money for low-income schools, Pell grants for low-income college students and the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, all of which were created by Congress.

At the same time, McMahon promised to cut off federal money from schools that defy Trump’s orders against transgender athletes in women’s sports, campus antisemitism and diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives across the country.

Democrats were alarmed by McMahon’s response to questions about Trump’s order to ban DEI programs in schools. Asked if African American history classes could trigger a loss of federal money, McMahon said she wasn’t certain and needed to look into it.

McMahon, a billionaire Trump ally and former CEO of World Wrestling Entertainment, brings less experience in education than many others in the role. She was a member of the Connecticut board of education for about a year in 2009, and she’s a longtime trustee at Sacred Heart University. She left the WWE in 2009 and led two unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut.

Republicans were mostly unified behind McMahon at the hearing, though Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska raised concerns that Trump would ask McMahon to overstep her authority and interfere with local control of schools.

The White House is considering an order that would direct the education secretary to dismantle the Education Department while urging Congress to fully abolish it.

Even without the order, the Trump administration has fired or suspended more than 100 Education Department employees. Dozens of contracts have been canceled by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

WASHINGTON — Months into his first term as president, Donald Trump was furious with the snowballing Russia investigation and ordered White House Counsel Don McGahn to make sure that special counsel Robert Mueller got fired.

“Mueller has to go,” McGahn recalled Trump saying. “Call me back when you do it.”

But McGahn didn’t do it, and Trump didn’t even bring it up the next time they saw each other. Such incidents were common during Trump’s initial experience in the White House, where officials would soften or ignore his most outrageous decisions and the president seemed unwilling to enforce his will.

It’s hard to imagine the same thing happening during Trump’s second term. Instead of repeating his laissez-faire attitude toward his own administration, the Republican president is asserting control at every opportunity, backed up by loyalists at all levels of government. Despite occasional disorganization and confusion, there’s a headstrong determination to push through any obstacles.

Trump doesn’t just want to change course from Joe Biden’s presidency, his team is holding back congressionally authorized funding championed by his predecessor.

Not only did Trump officials tell the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop working, his team set up a tip line so people could report unauthorized actions taken by staff at the agency.

Trump wasn’t satisfied with simply firing all the board members at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He made himself chairman.

This time, Trump seems to be saying, his orders will not be ignored. This time, there will be follow through.

The White House summarizes Trump’s approach with the mantra “promises made, promises kept.” Administration officials also dismiss concerns that the president is exercising too much control. They say Trump is entitled to impose his vision on the government that he was elected to lead.

Others see something darker and more menacing for the country and its future.

“Donald Trump’s instincts haven’t changed,” said Timothy Naftali, a Columbia University historian. “He’s just angrier, meaner and more effective than he was in his first term.”

Trump often felt like he was undermined in his first term by the “deep state,” a term used by his allies to describe civil servants and career officials. Now, he’s moving swiftly to cut the federal bureaucracy with the help of Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur Trump has empowered to oversee the downsizing of the workforce.

“We’ve never had a president come into office with such a deep desire for revenge,” Naftali said. “Donald Trump is trying to hollow out institutions that he thinks embarrassed him.”

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was created to protect Americans from financial fraud, abuse and deceptive practices, has been brought to a standstill. The U.S. Agency for International Development, a leading distributor of humanitarian assistance, was shut down.

A prime target is the Department of Justice, which infuriated Trump by investigating him during his first term and after leaving office. He was indicted twice by federal authorities, although the cases were dropped after he won last year’s election because sitting presidents can’t be prosecuted while in office.

Now Trump has placed loyalists in leadership positions, such as Emil Bove, the acting deputy attorney general who was previously Trump’s defense attorney.

Last week, Bove pushed to drop corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, saying it was more important for Adams to help Trump enact stricter immigration policies.

“The pending prosecution has unduly restricted Mayor Adams’ ability to devote full attention and resources to the illegal immigration and violent crime that escalated under the policies of the prior Administration,” Bove wrote.

Several prosecutors in New York and Washington resigned in protest, and a court hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Trump said that he wasn’t involved in the decision to drop the case against Adams, but he’s previously said that the mayor had been unfairly targeted for political reasons.

Another example of Trump’s heavy-handed approach this time has been his handling of criminal charges against supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Hours after taking the oath of office a month ago, the president pardoned roughly 1,500 people, including those who attacked police officers.

Then his administration decided to push even further. Thousands of FBI employees are being questioned about their role in Jan. 6 investigations, with suggestions that they could face punishment.

Bove said agents “who simply followed orders and carried out their duties in an ethical manner” were not at risk, adding that “the only individuals who should be concerned … are those who acted with corrupt or partisan intent.”

It’s a sharp change from Trump’s first administration, which included a number of establishment figures who resisted his impulses.

Olivia Troye, a former national security official who has been a critic of Trump, said staff members would confer with each other after meetings with the president.

“Why don’t you hold on that before you go do something, and let’s see what happens,” Troye recalled people saying. “Let’s see if it passes.”

The mixed signals were partly a matter of inexperience. The president and some of his advisers had never served in government.

“During the first administration, quite frankly, they had no idea what they were doing,” Troye said. “Now they have people in place who were there the first time around. They’ve been preparing to execute for several years.”

Trump has taken a scorched-earth approach to uprooting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, commonly known as DEI. He’s signed executive orders to end the programs, but that wasn’t enough for his administration.

Messages distributed by the Office of Personnel Management, which functions as the human resources agency for the federal government, said employees should not try to “disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.”

Anyone who sees evidence of DEI should immediately disclose it.

“There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information,” the messages said. “However, failure to report this information within 10 days may result in adverse consequences.”

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Elon Musk called Thursday to “delete entire agencies” from the United States’ federal government as part of his push under President Donald Trump to radically cut spending and restructure its priorities.

Musk offered a wide-ranging survey via a videocall to the World Governments Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, of what he described as the priorities of the Trump administration interspersed with multiple references to “thermonuclear warfare” and the possible dangers of artificial intelligence.

“We really have here rule of the bureaucracy as opposed to rule of the people — democracy,” Musk said, wearing a black T-shirt that read: “Tech Support.” He also joked that he was the “White House’s tech support,” borrowing from his profile on the social platform X, which he owns.

“I think we do need to delete entire agencies as opposed to leave a lot of them behind,” Musk said. “If we don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back.”

While Musk has spoken to the summit in the past, his appearance Thursday comes as he has consolidated control over large swaths of the government with Trump’s blessing since assuming leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency. That’s included sidelining career officials, gaining access to sensitive databases and inviting a constitutional clash over the limits of presidential authority.

Musk’s new role imbued his comments with more weight beyond being the world’s wealthiest person through his investments in SpaceX and electric carmaker Tesla.

His remarks also offered a more-isolationist view of American power in the Middle East, where the U.S. has fought wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

“A lot of attention has been on USAID for example,” Musk said, referring to Trump’s dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development. “There’s like the National Endowment for Democracy. But I’m like, ‘Okay, well, how much democracy have they achieved lately?’”

He added that the U.S. under Trump is “less interested in interfering with the affairs of other countries.”

There are “times the United States has been kind of pushy in international affairs, which may resonate with some members of the audience,” Musk said, speaking to the crowd in the UAE, an autocratically ruled nation of seven sheikhdoms.

“Basically, America should mind its own business, rather than push for regime change all over the place,” he said.

He also noted the Trump administration’s focus on eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion work, at one point linking it to AI.

“If hypothetically, AI is designed for DEI, you know, diversity at all costs, it could decide that there’s too many men in power and execute them,” Musk said.

On AI, Musk said he believed X’s newly updated AI chatbot, Grok 3, would be ready in about two weeks, calling it at one point “kind of scary.” He criticized Sam Altman’s management of OpenAI, which Musk just led a $97.4 billion takeover bid for, describing it as akin to a nonprofit aimed at saving the Amazon rainforest becoming a “lumber company that chops down the trees.”

Musk also announced plans for a “Dubai Loop” project in line with his work in the Boring Company — which is digging tunnels in Las Vegas to speed transit. However, he and the Emirati government official speaking with him offered no immediate details of the plan.

“It’s going to be like a wormhole,” Musk promised. “You just wormhole from one part of the city — boom — and you’re out in another part of the city.”

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 of 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.

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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.