On the afternoon of March 13, President Fitts sent a university-wide message with the subject line “Our Commitment to Academic Excellence and Opportunity.” The first few paragraphs wax poetic about diversity at Tulane and how it fosters “unconventional innovation.” He then declared the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion to now be the “Office of Academic Excellence and Opportunity.”
Fitts then admits the “conversation has become more pressing” as the Trump administration continues its crusade on DEI under the guise of eliminating “waste.”
The government has also gone after First Amendment freedoms while attacking DEI at colleges and universities. Typically, the government funds educational institutions, including private entities, regardless of their stance on any number of issues to advance research.
When the government cuts this funding and states a particular reason for such cuts, as with Columbia University, they imply the speech of private institutions or their students are subject to punishment and restriction, and that other speech is prioritized. Punishing certain types of speech has a “chilling effect,” the intent to scare citizens into silence or compliance.
This is alarming as the First Amendment is what has allowed the nation to resist tyranny and pursue progress. This blatant overreach by President Donald Trump indicates dark times for the country, especially if institutions do not put up a fight and simply acquiesce.
Columbia is already capitulating to the Trump administration’s demands in hopes of restoring funding. The list of demands includes “placing the Middle East, South Asian, and African Studies department under academic receivership” and abolishing the university’s Judicial Board. One can only assume the letter sent to Tulane has similar stipulations.
In the background of this attack on higher education is the Israel-Palestine conflict, and not to acknowledge it would be dishonest. Columbia and Barnard College are the scenes of the largest student protest actions against the war. Regardless of one’s opinion on the conflict or the students, civil disobedience is baked into the blood of universities.
Columbia has suppressed student speech, never bothering to negotiate with the students in good faith and causing further escalation. Despite that suppression, the Trump administration cut $400 million of funding anyway. It has been made clear that anything but pure submission to the administration will result in punishment.
All this to say is that Fitts, and Tulane as a whole, are capitulating. This move is at odds with the motto “Always the Audacious” as well as the broader student body and local community, demonstrated by the Instagram comments under The Hullabaloo’s post.
Tulane is conceding before anything has even been done. It is showing its belly to the monster that plans to eat it anyway. No amount of flowery prose will make this shift favorable, even if the office’s mission has not changed. If the University puts up no fight in the future, many will find its supposed commitment to diversity and progress to be empty platitudes.
Tulane is not “audacious” right now. It is not meeting the moment; it is acting cowardly. Universities, as places of knowledge creation and cultivation, must be the front line against authoritarianism. If Tulane is willing to change even the symbolic, such as the name of the office, who is to say they will not change the substantive? Even if one dislikes DEI, the blatant overstepping and de facto censoring on display is reprehensible. Right now, Tulane has no audacity.
