Dive Brief:
- Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Monday asked the U.S. Department of Education to investigate every college in his state to root out any diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which he described as discriminatory.
- The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights launched an investigation into the Louisiana Board of Regents earlier this month, alleging the language in the board's budget geared toward boosting underrepresented student enrollment across the state’s public colleges violated federal civil rights law.
- In his letter to the agency, Landry, a Republican, urged the federal government to go further and expand its probe. "Harmful diversity, equity, and inclusion policies have no place in Louisiana, and we welcome efforts to root out remnants of that practice in our state," he said.
Dive Insight:
The Louisiana Board of Regents — which oversees the state's three public university systems and its community college system — is facing scrutiny from the Education Department over language in its fiscal 2026 budget.
In it, the board referenced its broader goal of increasing the number of graduates from underrepresented racial minorities. It defined that pool as excluding White and Asian students. Its budget for fiscal 2022 used the same language.
Under President Donald Trump, the Education Department is now alleging that language could violate Title VI, which bans federally funded institutions from discriminating based on race, color or national origin.
“The Louisiana Board of Regents’ objective to prioritize recruitment and graduation efforts for ‘all races other than white [and] Asian’ appears to blatantly violate not only America’s antidiscrimination laws, but our nation’s core principles," Kimberly Richey, the department's assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a Feb. 13 statement.
This week, Landry threw his full support behind the investigation and offered the Trump administration his office’s aid.
"Louisiana is done with woke DEI policies," Landry said in a Monday social media post. "If there are violations of federal law anywhere in our system, we want them corrected."
Louisiana State University President Wade Rousse said in a Monday statement that the system "intends to be compliant with all state and federal laws and is prepared to cooperate with this expanded investigation,” according to the Louisiana Illuminator.
Unlike a growing number of other conservative-led states, Louisiana does not currently have a state ban on DEI efforts in higher education. Lawmakers have repeatedly introduced such bills in the state, but none have been signed into law.
Now, Landry is poised to enforce such a ban via federal oversight. He argued, as the Trump administration has, that DEI efforts are akin to discrimination.
"This issue began under the previous administration, and we are fixing it," the governor said on social media, taking a dig at his predecessor, Democrat John Bel Edwards, whose term ended in 2024.
Conservatives began their push to take down DEI policies late in Edwards' tenure. In 2023, Republican lawmakers unsuccessfully attempted to override Edwards' veto of legislation aimed at restricting any discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in public K-12 schools. They passed it again next year, and Landry signed it into law.
