7 Ways U-Nevada At Reno Is Defying Trump’s No-DEI Order

As the Trump administration heads for a showdown with Harvard University over the requirements attached to federal funding, the University of Nevada at Reno (UNR) is doubling down on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, hoping the administration is spread too thin to notice its illegal racial discrimination.

In February, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) told federally funded institutions of higher education that DEI-related policies and programs that treat “students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity” are illegal under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Colleges and universities that continue unlawful, discriminatory practices risk losing federal funding.

UNR, however, remains defiant. Here are seven ways UNR violates President Trump’s directive to cease racial discrimination in higher education.

1. DEI Mission Statement and Strategic Plan

DEI is a pillar of UNR’s institutional philosophy. Its mission statement declares that “the University recognizes and embraces the critical importance of diversity in preparing students for global citizenship and is committed to a culture of excellence, inclusion, and accessibility.”

In 2021, UNR began executing an ambitious DEI Strategic Action Plan that seeks to align all university policies regarding curriculum, admissions, hiring, and administration with the goals of DEI. This plan violates the Trump administration’s dear colleague letter’s prohibition on imbuing race into any aspect of “student, academic, and campus life.”

2. Discrimination in Admissions

The official admissions policy of the Nevada System of Higher Education is to “help diversify our society and establish social justice” by catering to “minority groups, women and other protected classes.” To this end, NSHE “encourages each institution to devote significant resources” to recruiting and retaining “underrepresented minorities.”

UNR zealously pursues a policy of affirmative action. In 2013, UNR was designated as an “emerging” Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), a race-based program under Title V of the Higher Education Act that provides $350 million a year to institutions with student bodies that are more than a quarter Hispanic. UNR President Brian Sandoval, a former Republican governor, has called the HSI designation a “top strategic priority” that demonstrates the university’s “commitment to equity and inclusion.”

In 2014, UNR implemented a racial quota in its strategic plan to become a designated HSI by 2025. UNR has since met its racial quota, increasing its Hispanic population from roughly 15 percent in 2013 to 25 percent in 2023. By contrast, UNR had 1,000 fewer white students in 2024 than in 2000, when the total student body was two-thirds its current size.

The Trump administration recently took down the U.S. Department of Education’s HSI webpage, signaling that the program may, in the administration’s judgment, violate the recent Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

UNR has also established a racial quota for Asian, Native American, and Pacific Islander students on its path to become an “Asian American, and Native American, Pacific Islander Serving Institution.” In addition, many departments and colleges at UNR have internal quotas to “increase (the) percentage of students of color.”

These policies violate both recent legal precedent and the dear colleague letter’s prohibition on using racial preferences in college admissions.

3. Discrimination in Hiring

NSHE proudly undertakes “affirmative action … where otherwise required to remedy the effects of past discrimination.” NSHE directs UNR to engage in discriminatory hiring practices that “require more than employment neutrality.”

In line with this directive, UNR actively recruits “members of minority groups, women” and “other protected classes” and creates “programs designed to lead to their qualification for both academic and classified positions.” UNR also implemented a policy requiring faculty search committees to be “diverse and include representation from under-represented groups.” Committee members must undergo “implicit bias training” as well.

These policies violate the federal prohibition on using race in decisions regarding hiring.

4. Racially Segregated Dorms

UNR allows select students to live in Living Learning Communities (LLCs), where students with “shared academic, social and cultural interests” live on the same dormitory floor, attend courses together, and receive special benefits. The university boasts that this experience is considered a “high-impact practice” that results in higher grade point averages, a higher first-year to second-year retention rate, and higher graduation rates.

Four LLCs segregate entire floors and wings of dormitories by race and ethnicity. Among these are LLCs dedicated to “Asian Pacific Islanders, Black Scholars, Indigenous, and LatinX.” These LLCs violate the Trump administration’s prohibition on “segregation by race … in dormitories and other facilities.”

5. Racially Segregated Graduation Ceremonies

UNR sponsors graduation celebrations segregated by race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation. Segregated “affinity celebrations” are held for students identifying as Middle Eastern and North African; Lavender (LGBTQ+); Indigenous; LatinX; Asian/Pacific Islander; and Black Diaspora. These celebrations violate the dear colleague letter’s prohibition on “segregation by race at graduation ceremonies.”

6. DEI Bureaucracy

UNR operates two major DEI offices: the office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Multicultural Center, as well as a racially exclusive Latino Research Center.

In addition, many UNR colleges and departments have separate diversity committees designed to ensure all academic units comply with the DEI agenda. For example, the School of Medicine is beholden to a “Council on Diversity Initiatives,” whose stated purpose is to advance a “culture of diversity and inclusion.”

The work of these administrative units violates the federal dear colleague letter’s prohibition on treating “students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity.”

7. Mandatory DEI Training for Faculty and Staff

UNR’s DEI offices organize and offer DEI workshops and training on subjects such as microaggressions, implicit bias, and social justice for students, faculty, and staff. NSHE mandates that all employees of its institutions, including UNR, must biennially receive “anti-bias” and “anti-discrimination training” that addresses “the effects of bias and discrimination, including racism, antisemitism, age, disability, gender … sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, race, color, and religion.”

This policy violates the federal prohibition on imbuing “explicit race-consciousness into everyday training, programming, and discipline.”

UNR’s extensive DEI regime violates the constitutional principle of colorblind equal protection. Moreover, its quiet contempt for the rule of law poses a direct challenge to the electoral mandate of Trump’s policy agenda.

UNR is a run-of-the-mill public institution in a swing county of a state that narrowly voted for Trump in 2024. If its defiance goes unanswered, widespread resistance from similar institutions across the nation will undoubtedly continue. A shot across UNR’s bow will show the higher education establishment that ending unlawful racial discrimination is not optional.

Samuel Lair is director of the Center for American Education at the Idaho Freedom Foundation, and a graduate of the University of Nevada at Reno and Hillsdale College’s PhD program. Scott Yenor is is senior director of state coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life and a professor of political science at Boise State University.