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A year after Syracuse University created its Office of Diversity and Inclusion in 2020 in response to student activism, the university released a draft of its first five-year Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility plan. The document from 2021 outlined a vision for SU to become a “recognized national leader” of DEIA in higher education.

On July 31, nearly four years later, Chancellor Kent Syverud announced the closure of the ODI and opening of a new Human Resources unit called People and Culture in its place. References to “diversity” and the DEIA Strategic Plan disappeared from the office’s website. The ODI’s social media accounts were taken offline.

But these changes didn’t come as a shock to many SU students.

SU’s decision to close the ODI came amid a national trend of higher education institutions revising programs to comply with Trump’s Jan. 21 executive order prohibiting “illegal DEI” practices in higher education, citing concerns that they contradict the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

On Wednesday, SU’s Student Government Association released a statement regarding the removal of the ODI, saying it is “working closely with the University to understand and navigate this transition” amid students’ growing “uncertainty” about the change.

“The announcement that the Diversity & Inclusion office has been dissolved has caused uncertainty and concern across campus; however, while the structure has shifted, vital student programs and resources will remain available to all students,” SGA wrote in the statement.

While they weren’t surprised, several SU students said they felt the ODI’s closure didn’t reflect the desires of the student body and hoped SU wouldn’t conform to Trump’s efforts. However, many were split on whether the change would have noticeable effects on campus life.

In an Aug. 13 reply to The Daily Orange, an SU spokesperson referred back to the two previous campus-wide emails in response to questions when asked how the ODI’s closure would impact students.

One SU senior, who asked to remain anonymous due to potential retaliation, said their experiences last semester as a student assistant with the LGBTQ+ Resource Center and being involved with the Native Student Program highlighted what they saw as the university’s efforts to align with Trump’s agenda — even before SU’s July announcement.

The senior said the center often had to be “more clever” with its wording when presenting ideas to the university, as several terms related to the LGBTQ+ community were among those the Trump administration previously targeted in its efforts to internally purge DEIA terminology.

Since “diversity” and “inclusion” were also on this list, they said it “wasn’t really surprising” that SU chose to create a new unit with different terminology.

On March 6, SU announced it would review its DEIA programs to ensure they remained in compliance with federal law. The evaluation, led by then-Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion Mary Grace Almandrez — now the vice president for People and Culture — included collecting feedback from over 300 community members.

“While change often brings discomfort, we encourage every student to remain engaged — ask questions, advocate thoughtfully, and hold on to the vision of a campus where everyone belongs,” SGA’s statement reads. “The office may be closed, but the commitment continues.”

Among the 16 peer institutions in SU’s 2024 Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Feedback Report, four — Tulane University, Northeastern University, University of Notre Dame and University of Rochester — renamed their DEIA programs this year.

Three more — University of Miami, Clemson University and Tufts University — made similar changes prior to Trump’s election, while the remaining nine maintain their DEIA offices intact as of Aug. 20. Some of the schools that still have DEI programs, like Boston College and Drexel University, are similarly evaluating and altering these initiatives due to federal mandates.

Experts say universities are removing and revising these initiatives primarily to avoid the risk of losing federal funding, which amounts to around $68.5 million of SU’s total revenue in Fiscal Year 2023, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported in February.

While many students understood the reasoning behind SU’s decision, they said they believe it exemplifies a lack of support for underrepresented students at the university.

“I find that the simplicity of that name change has a lot more weight to it than you would assume,” the senior said. “To me, it shows that what that office consists of bothers them, so they want it to feel smaller, and they don’t want it to seem like we are being inclusive to people.”

Echoing the senior, Orezimena “Rezi” Ubogu — a junior dual majoring in English and Textual Studies as well as Television, Radio and Film — said the name of the new unit, broader than its predecessor, may prevent students of color from “feeling seen” at a predominantly white institution.

“To me, it really isn’t just a name change. It feels like erasure,” Ubogu said.

Ubogu’s concerns reflect those of multiple student organizations on campus. After SU announced the ODI’s closure, SU’s chapter of College Democrats, in collaboration with College Democrats of New York, released an Instagram post condemning the decision. The post included a 2023 quote from Syverud affirming SU’s “longstanding commitment” to inclusion alongside another graphic that asked, “What changed SU?”

That same day, the Instagram account @blackatcuse called the university’s actions “shameful” and accused SU’s administration of harassing students of color in a comment on The D.O.’s Instagram. Syracuse Antifascist Action — a new, “unofficial” student organization that opened its member applications the day before the ODI’s closure — wrote that “Kent has no problem bending the knee to Trump” and urged students to “make their voices heard.”

“Universities … have a duty and responsibility to not only serve but protect their students with the utmost dignity,” CDNY President and SU graduate student Tyler Toledo wrote in a separate statement sent to The D.O. “Altering the language used in their administrative spaces and shutting down the office of DEI to appease those uncomfortable with ‘diversity’ fundamentally compromises and undermines that responsibility.”

In contrast, some commenters on The D.O.’s post spoke out in support of the decision, arguing the new unit and its name were more inclusive to all students than its predecessor. Some also said they believed the ODI was “ineffective” and that a division focusing more broadly on “People and Culture” would better coalign with the principle of “equal opportunity.”

SU’s chapter of College Republicans declined The D.O.’s request for comment. The National Federation of College Republicans released a statement celebrating Trump’s remarks during his March 4 Joint Session of Congress. In his speech, Trump said his administration had “ended the tyranny of so-called (DEI) policies” in the federal government and private sector.

Due to the current political climate, Ubogu said she “wasn’t surprised” by SU’s decision and that she had heard “whisperings” about future changes within her position in the former BIPOC Student Success Programs — now called Belonging and Student Success. BIPOC — which stands for Black, Indigenous and People of Color — is also on Trump’s list of targeted terms.

In SGA’s Aug. 20 statement, the association confirmed it wouldn’t get rid of its internal DEI Committee. SGA stated that it would also “continue to build spaces where students from all backgrounds feel supported and celebrated.”

“In alignment with this transition, the Student Experience Division, including its Intercultural Collective and student success programs, will expand its efforts to foster community among students and promote meaningful engagement across differences, backgrounds, perspectives and experiences,” Syverud wrote in the initial campus-wide email announcing the decision.

The senior said that, as long as SU continues to offer existing resources for underrepresented students, the student body has “other things to worry about” despite the “upsetting” nature of the initial change. But for several students, including the senior, the closing of the ODI also reignited other ongoing frustrations students have with SU administration.

For Amith Tatineni, a senior triple majoring in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, SU’s decision signaled that the university values funding and donors more than students. He said the change reinforced his frustrations with university administration, pointing to tuition increases and the potential for recent investments to similarly influence policies, such as SU’s partnership with Micron Technology.

“What this shows, in my opinion, is the school’s lack of backbone to institutional funding and donorship — this idea that, if somebody wants something done, and they have enough money, this school is willing to change all its morals around,” Tatineni said.

Because of SU’s history of “liberal-leaning” protests — such as #NotAgainSU and the 1970 anti-Vietnam War student strike, Tatineni said he questions whether the decision reflects students’ desires. Though he said he doesn’t expect the transition to have any tangible impact on campus life.

One freshman, Sophia Ghadimi, an undecided student in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she also didn’t understand why SU would opt to make changes to the ODI without identifying a specific problem that needed to be fixed.

“Does Syracuse agree with (removing DEIA initiatives), or are they just following it because of the policy?” she said.

Chloe Brown Monchamp, a sophomore political science major, said she doesn’t expect the ODI’s absence to visibly change campus life. Still, she said the name change has made her consider transferring because of her personal commitment to DEIA. Aspiring to become an international human rights lawyer, she said she had hoped SU would take a stronger stance against Trump’s anti-DEIA initiatives, especially given its reputed public policy programs.

She added that she wishes SU did more to support underrepresented students, noting that the university benefits from the visibility and revenue of football and basketball programs whose rosters are majority athletes of color. She said she worries the shift to People and Culture may make students feel unrepresented.

“I don’t think necessarily the decision will make a drastic change in what you see on campus, but I think it’ll make a drastic change in the ways that people feel on campus … even with something as small as a name change,” Brown Monchamp said.

As a new student, Ghadimi said that, though she was unfamiliar with the ODI operations before she arrived at SU, she worried that the transition might “put a halt to diversity” at the university and questioned whether the decision was truly “necessary.”

In the July 31 statement, cosigned by several SU administrators — including Syverud, Interim Vice Chancellor and Provost Lois Agnew and Almandrez, the university wrote that it will “continue to advance our commitment to being a campus that is welcoming to all.”

The wording closely mirrors a line in the 2021 DEIA draft: “We invite you to be involved as we finalize the plan to create a welcoming campus community for all.”

The document also mentions the late 2019 and early 2020 #NotAgainSU movement — demonstrations in which students occupied university buildings to protest the administration’s handling of bias incidents and treatment of students of color. The ODI was also founded that year.

Despite her frustration, Ubogu said she hopes something positive will emerge from the new People and Culture unit. She said that, because terms like BIPOC have become “plagued” in public discourse and some even view them as “derogatory,” having a broader name may make more students resonate with the programs designed to support them.

“I hope this name change doesn’t mean that Syracuse is changing in a negative direction, but instead changing the negative and hurtful and exclusionary behavior that we’ve been seeing,” Ubogu said. “Rather than having it be something that divides us, it’s something that unites us and makes the school better.”

Brown Monchamp, along with the other students The D.O. spoke with, said they don’t yet know what the change will look like and predict its effects may not become clear until the fall semester officially begins.

For now, many said they hope SU will continue to uphold its previous commitments to DEIA — even if the university is no longer using that language explicitly.

Asst. Sports Digital Editor Henry Daley contributed reporting to this article.

Published on August 21, 2025 at 12:56 am
Contact Julia: jmboehni@syr.edu