Ohio State discontinues Office of Diversity and Inclusion, Center for Belonging and Social Change effective Friday, will remove 16 professional staff positions within 60 days

Ohio State President Ted Carter Jr. at Thursday’s University Senate meeting, during which he confirmed the Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Center for Belonging and Social Change will be discontinued effective Friday, and related professional staff positions will be removed. Credit: Sandra Fu | Photo Editor

Ohio State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Center for Belonging and Social Change will be discontinued effective Friday, and related professional staff positions will be removed, university President Ted Carter Jr. announced at Thursday’s University Senate meeting.

University spokesperson Ben Johnson confirmed 16 employees will remain employed for 60 days, during which they will work with the university to find alternative positions. The Lantern is working to identify the affected individuals and their current roles. Additional staff positions beyond these 16 may be reassigned to other university offices.

The Hale Black Cultural Center, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and other DEI-related units at the university are currently under the president’s review, though they remain open at the time of publication. According to a campus-wide email sent by Carter Thursday, certain services within ODI will continue, though the email states programming and services offered by CBSC will be discontinued.

Despite these institutional changes, no Ohio State student with a current scholarship will lose that scholarship, nor will they lose current financial aid, according to Carter’s email. Students with a job in ODI or CBSC will be offered alternative jobs at the university. 

In his email, Carter said the university is “communicating directly to impacted staff, students and faculty to provide further details.”

“Both ODI and the CBSC have historically done valuable work for our campus and students,” Carter said in his email. “I know these decisions will be disappointing for many in our community, particularly as we navigate an already uncertain and challenging period. We may not know all the answers, but I have heard your concerns, I understand the varied emotions many on our campus are feeling, and I have been heartened to witness the grace and care with which we are treating each other in uncertain moments.”

The Morrill Scholarship and Young Scholars programs — both within ODI — will continue, though there may be adjustments made to the eligibility criteria, according to Carter’s email.

Additionally, the email states the Office of Institutional Equity will continue to handle reports of discrimination, harassment and sexual misconduct, though it will be renamed the Office of Civil Rights Compliance and overseen by the Office of University Compliance and Integrity.

Credit: Lucy Lawler | Managing Editor for Content

In his email, Carter said these conversations are “difficult, as [the university] knew they would be,” and higher education is facing a “challenging environment.” 

“Nonetheless, I continue to believe that the best course for our university is to take actions proactively so that we can manage this new landscape in ways that best uphold the values of excellence, access and opportunity that we hold dear,” Carter said in his email. 

These changes arrive in light of several executive orders issued by the President Donald Trump’s administration, a letter from the Department of Education and Ohio Senate Bill 1. 

In his email, Carter attributed the institutional changes taking place at Ohio State to the federal government — namely the potential for the university to lose “federal dollars that are so important to our student, academic and operational success” — SB 1 and Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s indications to the university that his office agrees with the federal government’s position on diversity, equity and inclusion.

“We can’t predict the outcome of any one legal case, but what we do know is this: Taken together, the actions at the state and federal levels and the guidance we’ve received from our state and federal leaders provide a clear signal that we will need to make changes now in the way we have historically gone about our work in DEI,” Carter said in his email. 

Trump issued a Jan. 20 executive order — titled “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” — which eliminated DEI policies, programming and positions within the federal government. 

The next day, a Jan. 21 executive order — titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity” — ordered federal agencies to end DEI programs and mandated action to encourage higher education institutions to align with these policies.

On Feb. 21, a U.S. district judge issued a preliminary injunction against the majority of these orders, temporarily preventing the Trump administration from “terminating or changing federal contracts [it] consider[s] equity-related,” according to the Associated Press.

The “Dear colleague” letter from the Department of Education — released Feb. 14 — threatened to remove federal funding from institutions of higher education that failed to comply with eliminating DEI initiatives by Feb. 28, per prior Lantern reporting. 

Ohio SB 1 — sponsored by Sen. Jerry Cirino (R-Kirtland) — aims to ban DEI programs at all public Ohio higher education institutions and ban faculty strikes in the name of “diversity of thought,” per prior Lantern reporting. The bill passed through the Ohio Senate in a 21-11 vote along party lines despite roughly 200 Ohioans orally testifying against the bill on Feb. 12 and is now awaiting approval from the Ohio House and Gov. Mike DeWine.

This story was updated at 6:54 p.m. Feb. 27 to clarify the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity exists separately from the ODI.