The Trump administration is proposing a new rule that would strip private schools and colleges of their tax-exempt status if they provide targeted help to students based on their race, a significant escalation in the White House’s campaign to eradicate diversity programs directed at Black, Hispanic and other minority students.
The US Treasury Department proposed the change on Thursday in a new regulation that, if made final, would kick in after May 2027 with the conclusion of the academic year.
The rule is broadly aimed at ending any policies or programmes that help students because of their race, and it specifically says such benefits in admissions, scholarships and facilities “would be incompatible” with the rule.
It’s the latest attempt by the Trump administration to pressure schools and colleges to weed out diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies that had become common before President Donald Trump returned to the White House with a promise to end them.
Trump officials have used Civil Rights-era laws to unwind the policies, saying they discriminate against white and Asian American students. Higher education leaders criticized the proposal.
“The administration’s latest rules changes are its most blatant attack to keep working class Americans and people of colour from accessing higher education and a better life,” said Mike Gavin, President and CEO of the Alliance for Higher Education.
“By claiming that efforts to increase fair opportunity for all students are discriminatory, the administration is trying to gaslight the American people into believing that up is down and black is white.”
Scores of universities have shut down or rebranded their DEI offices and ended scholarships and clubs designed for minority students under pressure from the White House.
In a statement announcing the proposal, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested that even policies that are no longer under the banner of DEI could be targeted.
“Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” Bessent wrote in a post on X announcing the proposed legislation.
The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) estimate that up to 18,000 private schools, colleges and other education institutions could be affected by the proposal.
US private universities have been exempt from many taxes for more than a century because they provide a public good. The benefit saves many universities millions of dollars every year.
Trump has seen the tax-exempt status as a lever to pull in his pressure campaign against colleges that he describes as hotbeds of “wokeness” and “radical left ideology”.
He previously threatened to cut the benefit for Harvard University last year during his battle with the nation’s oldest college. In a response, Harvard officials said there was no legal basis for doing so and argued it would force cuts to financial aid and crucial medical research.
It’s incredibly rare for the federal government to go after a college’s tax-exempt status, but there’s one notable precedent. Bob Jones University, a small Christian school in South Carolina, lost the benefit in the 1970s over a ban on interracial dating and marriage on campus.
The Supreme Court upheld the IRS’s decision to deny the school its exemption. The school has since ended the ban and regained tax-exempt status in 2017. Laws forbid the IRS from targeting individuals and organisations for ideological reasons, and federal officials are not allowed to direct IRS investigations.
To maintain nonprofit status, which allows donations to be tax-deductible, organisations must follow IRS rules on lobbying, political campaign activity and annual reporting requirements, plus other obligations.
The Trump administration describes the new proposal as a move toward restoring merit in the nation’s education systems.
The Justice Department has separately opened investigations into several medical schools that it accuses of favouring Black and Hispanic students in admissions.
Trump officials say any such favouritism violates Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a federal law that forbids discrimination in education and was created to fight segregation and its impact.
Additional sources • AP