Overview
- MIT President Sally Kornbluth announced the sunsetting of the Institute Community and Equity Office and the elimination of the vice president for equity and inclusion after a comprehensive 18-month review.
- The university joins 44 others in a Department of Education civil rights probe into alleged race-exclusionary practices in graduate programs.
- Federal funding cuts tied to DEI policies have cost MIT up to $35 million while the Trump administration has frozen more than $3 billion in research grants to Harvard.
- Kornbluth says future inclusion efforts will be integrated into academic and student affairs departments and led at the campus community level.
- The decision follows MIT’s earlier removal of diversity statements from hiring and admissions and underscores a national trend reevaluating higher education DEI initiatives.