Trump wants to change colleges nationwide. GOP-led states offer a preview

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, a new trustee of the University of West Florida and a fellow at 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.

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.

Student Kenny Douglas poses for a photo at the University of Missouri where he is a a history and Black studies major, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, inside the Student Diversity Center on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, sorts canned goods as he volunteers on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024 for the West Side Food Pantry near the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, in the student lounge area of the LGBTQA office on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Nick Koenig, a University of Idaho doctoral student who teaches in climate change and sociology, poses for a photo on Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, on campus in Moscow, Idaho. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Student Kenny Douglas poses for a photo at the University of Missouri where he is a a history and Black studies major, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

Student Kenny Douglas poses for a photo at the University of Missouri where he is a a history and Black studies major, Wednesday, Dec. 18, 2024, in Columbia, Mo. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)