It looks like DEI isn’t dead at Michigan State University.

MSU’s Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion will honor a trio of College of Arts & Letters faculty members as recipients of the 2024-25 Excellence in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Awards.

The awards “recognize exceptional and innovative contributions that advance diversity, equity, and inclusion at Michigan State University through their teaching, research, programming, service, community outreach, and/or organizational change,” the school said in an announcement.

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The school will honor Jonathan Choti, associate professor of African languages and cultures; Leonora Souza Paula, assistant professor of literary studies; and Delia Fernández-Jones, associate dean for equity, justice, and faculty affairs, associate professor of history, and core faculty member of Chicano/Latino Studies. The school will give Fernández-Jones a team award and Choti and Paula individual awards.

DEI initiatives have come under scrutiny since President Donald Trump’s election in November. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Education said it terminated more than $600 million in grants to institutions and nonprofits that used taxpayer money to train teachers and education agencies on “divisive ideologies.”

“DEI programs, for example, frequently preference certain racial groups and teach students that certain racial groups bear unique moral burdens that others do not,” U.S. Department of Education Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor wrote in a Friday letter to schools. “Such programs stigmatize students who belong to particular racial groups based on crude racial stereotypes. Consequently, they deny students the ability to participate fully in the life of a school.

“The Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions,” Trainor added. “The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.”

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A 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling concluded that race-based college admissions standards are unlawful under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

Last month, MSU officials postponed an event titled “The Future of DEI Policy at MSU” and would have included Jabbar Bennett, vice president and chief diversity officer; Sarah Walter, associate vice president for federal relations; and Jacob Courville, director of federal relations, State News, the school’s newspaper, reported.

“President Trump has started his term by signing a series of sweeping Executive Orders,” the invite read, according to the report. “These EOs signal the administration’s priorities and have implications for many American institutions, including higher education.”

MSU isn’t the only university shifting its course in the wake of Trump’s actions. According to the Goldwater Institute, several schools nationwide, including George Mason University, Virginia Commonwealth University, the University of North Carolina and the University of Wyoming, have either rejected DEI proposals or discontinued DEI programs.

The University of Michigan, MSU’s in-state rival, spent roughly a quarter billion dollars on DEI initiatives since it created one of the country’s largest university programs in 2016. Last spring, UM’s DEI office found that more than half (56%) of the program’s spending went to salaries and benefits for DEI staff across the university’s three campuses.

However, some regents believe it’s more. In December, UM officials announced that the school would “no longer solicit diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure.”

The school does maintain a DEI statement on its website, which notes that diversity “broadly represents the variety of identities, perspectives, and experiences that individuals collectively bring to an environment.”

While some companies and schools have eliminated their DEI programs, others have rebranded or renamed them to keep them going while trying to eliminate the scrutiny. According to a report from CriticalRace.org, “DEI isn’t going away, it’s just going underground.”