Cal State system seeks delicate balance on diversity

EdSource identified small adjustments in how campuses frame equity practices by comparing snapshots of websites taken throughout the year. Some edits were captured by website archives for the first time after the U.S. Department of Education released a Dear Colleague Letter on Feb. 14 seeking an end to race-conscious programs and giving colleges two weeks to dismantle them or risk federal funding.

The letter, which a U.S. district judge overturned in August, triggered a range of reactions among colleges nationwide. Seeking to minimize federal attention without interrupting services for underrepresented students, some scrubbed diversity buzzwords from websites, while others cautiously reviewed university programs.

Internal CSU documents show that the system leaned toward the second approach in the chaotic days following the letter’s release. The documents, prepared by CSU’s general counsel, advised CSU presidents to “stay the course” on diversity-related practices and said immediate changes should not be necessary while waiting for clarification from the federal government. They also noted that the Feb. 14 letter “does not have the force and effect of law.”

“To put it simply, (diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility) programs that comply with existing state and federal law remain permissible,” a memo dated Feb. 18 said. “Programs promoting equal access, non-discrimination, and academic success for all students are not inherently unlawful. Faculty and staff should continue fostering an inclusive learning environment in compliance with university policies and the law.”

The general counsel also recommended that campuses “conduct an immediate review and inventory of their programs to ensure they are legally compliant.” Documents advised universities to flag webpages using terms related to areas like race or sex so they could be reviewed and updated in line with a 10-point checklist, or removed and archived if obsolete.

Some website edits discussed in this story predated the general counsel guidance. It was not clear whether those first captured in snapshots after its release resulted from reviews prompted by the systemwide guidance or independent of them. EdSource sent CSU officials a list of the websites and name changes, asking them to provide feedback on any they believed were incorrect or needed context. Officials questioned one finding, which has been omitted, but did not individually address the rest.

In a written statement, CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith described the updates as part of efforts “aligning language, updating policies and practices across our campuses to strengthen communication, improve operational efficiency, and advance student success.” The statement said CSU “remains firmly committed to inclusive excellence and equitable success for all students and employees” and that its programs “are open to all and follow state and federal laws.” (The full statement is available here.)

California has long prohibited discrimination based on race and other federally protected classes in public education under Proposition 209, the 1996 ban on affirmative action that voters reaffirmed in 2020.

Name rebrands and website edits aside, typical university programs continue at CSU. Cal State East Bay’s student cultural centers have hosted events with food and games to kick off the new school year. Stanislaus State’s Presidential Celebration Series will screen a film about Mexican American astronaut Jose M. Hernández in October.

And equity remains a common theme at CSU this fall. A new framework unveiled in September promises every CSU student an affordable education that sets them on the path to economic mobility, and commits the university system to monitor equity gaps in areas like graduation and retention. “We have to shoot for every [student] — who do we leave out?” CSU Chancellor Mildred García said of the framework at a board of trustees meeting on Sept. 9. “Every student is very important, is an asset to their family, their community and the state.”

Supporting ‘the success and basic human rights of all CSU students’

To better understand how California State University navigated a period of upheaval in higher education, EdSource in March made a request under state public records law for email correspondence sent to or from select CSU officials involved in state and federal policy. The request — limited to messages mentioning terms, including “dear colleague letter” — covered correspondence between Jan. 19 and March 25.

CSU in July provided EdSource with thousands of email threads in response, including general counsel memos reacting to the Feb. 14 letter. A judge in August ruled that the letter and related guidance was unlawful; it had been temporarily paused since April. In late July, the U.S. Department of Justice also released a separate interpretation of federal antidiscrimination law.

CSU officials later said their response to EdSource’s request inadvertently “included many exempt records, including several protected by the attorney-client privilege,” and requested EdSource destroy or return the records. EdSource has not agreed to do so and continued the reporting of this story. “We believe it’s in the public’s interest to understand the calculations education officials are making in an era of increased scrutiny of their actions,” said Deborah Clark, CEO of EdSource. “Our mission rests on the idea that an informed, involved public is necessary to strengthen California’s education institutions.”

The records provide new insight into a key challenge facing California State University: how to educate a student body reflecting California’s expansive demographic diversity without inviting federal suspicions.

Increasing college access has long been central to CSU’s mission. Its students advocated for greater inclusivity on California campuses in the 1960s, leading protests that spurred the creation of Ethnic Studies departments and educational opportunity programs. More recently, CSU has pushed to close achievement gaps across factors like race and income while winning national accolades for its commitment to equity.

García alluded to that reality in her first public remarks to the board of trustees following the November 2024 election. Without mentioning the election or Trump, García said CSU would do “everything within our power to support the success and basic human rights of all CSU students, from all backgrounds and walks of life, all races and ethnicity, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity and regardless of national origin or citizen status.”

In the months since, CSU campuses have been among the many nationwide grappling with the abrupt cancellation of federal research grants, the termination of international student visas and a series of investigations into antisemitism, sex discrimination and racial preferencing.

Yet, CSU has avoided the high-profile showdowns with federal officials seen in the Ivy League and at the University of California, where the Trump administration suspended more than $500 million in federal research grants to UCLA amid accusations of antisemitism and proposed that the university pay a $1.2 billion settlement to restore them.

‘Stay the course (and don’t panic)’

In the confusion following the Feb. 14 Dear Colleague Letter, university leaders around the country raised questions about what the letter would mean for their students.

Guidance sent by CSU’s general counsel on Feb. 18 tried to provide some preliminary answers. The documents stressed that CSU’s diversity initiatives “are not focused on illegal discriminatory hiring or admissions practices or providing preferential treatment based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.” A checklist to help presidents meet the frenzied moment started with a compact recommendation: “Stay the course (and don’t panic).”

The general counsel also advised campuses to:

• Ensure “strict compliance” with Proposition 209, referring campuses to a handbook on the constitutional amendment for further information.

• Take an inventory of all university programs — from admissions criteria to cultural graduation celebrations — to determine whether they “could be viewed as promoting or engaging in preferential treatment, discrimination, or preferences of any kind based on any protected status,” such as race or sex.

• Review and potentially revise university diversity statements with campus counsel.

• Refrain from certain kinds of engagement with third-party scholarship providers that have preferences based on protected status.

• Add consistent “equal opportunity and educational excellence” disclaimers to webpages and other communications stating that the university’s programs are open to all.

The systemwide guidance mirrored advice from the leader of a national organization that advocates for inclusion. Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said she would have recommended colleges in February “take a very close look at all of your programs and practices and approaches to supporting a diverse campus to determine that, from your perspective, the institution’s work was lawful.”

Cal State Fullerton has undergone a similar review, said David Forgues, an administrator at Mt. San Antonio College who previously served as the university’s vice president for student affairs. The goal was “to make sure that we were being as clear as possible that all of our programs and services are open to all of our community members,” Forgues said.

“It didn’t hurt for us — like we do lots of times — to look back and say, ‘Hey, are we doing the best we can? Are we in full compliance with all of the laws and rules and regulations that govern our work?’” he added.

Changing websites, not ‘the essence of the work’

CSU campuses continue to advertise the ways they strive for inclusivity, much as they did before Trump’s election to a second term. But a handful have made recent edits altering the names of a variety of diversity-related programs.

At Fresno State, the website for the Division of Equity and Engagement was live until at least June, but now redirects to the university’s Cross-Cultural and Gender Center. At Cal State Fullerton, what was called the Division of Human Resources, Diversity & Inclusion in a February snapshot, by March had been renamed the Division of Human Resources and Inclusive Excellence. At Cal State Los Angeles, a program to support faculty retention was called Equity Coordinators as of a December 2024 web capture, but was renamed Faculty Retention Advocates by the next time a web crawler archived the website on the day after Trump’s inauguration.

The names of student support offices have repeatedly morphed since the civil rights era of the 1960s, as colleges across higher education swapped terms like minority affairs and multicultural education for diversity and inclusion, said Eddie R. Cole, a professor of education and history at UCLA. “From the early ‘60s through now, you can see that, regardless of the title of an office, there have been consistent people on campus that have been very much committed to serving all students, particularly students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds,” Cole said.

Lisa Wolf-Wendel, who studies equity in higher education at the University of Kansas, said universities changing the names of offices or student centers may not matter in the short term. But if additional shifts in funding, personnel and missions follow, she added, historically marginalized students may not be able to find resources meant to help them.

“You just want to make sure that the people who need extra help or support are getting it,” she said. “And I think that will get harder, like a game of telephone.”

Short of trading one name for another, many CSU campuses have added disclaimers expressing a commitment to state and federal civil rights laws as well as “equal opportunity in education and employment without unlawful discrimination or preferential treatment.”

And independent of the chancellor’s office guidance, the loss of federal funding has prompted some at CSU to revisit the language they use on websites and in grant applications.

Tina Cheuk, a faculty member at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo whose federal teacher training grant was canceled earlier this year, said her team decided to stop using words like diversity to describe their work and instead focus on concrete outcomes. “We didn’t change the essence of the work,” Cheuk said. “We really made sure anything that was public, like our website, was clear, without diminishing our support for students.”