Grand Rapids Community College will review its scholarships following the Trump administration’s promise to withhold funding from schools that don’t end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. Rylan Capper | rcapper@mlive.com
GRAND RAPIDS, MI – Grand Rapids Community College will review its scholarships following the Trump administration’s promise to withhold funding from schools that don’t end diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Lisa Freiburger, GRCC’s vice president for finance and administration, who was recently announced as interim president, said the college is not sure how many scholarships could be changed, and no decisions have been made as part of the review process.
RELATED: Grand Rapids Community College president resigns after being placed on paid leave
“We have not made any changes yet,” she said during the GRCC Board of Trustees work session on April 16. “We will likely need to consider some.”
Colleges and universities across the state and country have eliminated, rolled back or are evaluating DEI practices in response to federal orders against such initiatives.
Muskegon Community College suspended DEI programming and modified its mission and vision statements in February. In March, the University of Michigan announced major changes to its DEI programs, including the closing its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
RELATED: Muskegon Community College suspends DEI programs amid Trump mandates
Freiburger said the evaluation process will look at who is described as eligible for scholarships and consider instances where it may be appropriate to work “with our donors to broaden that criteria, to be able to offer that opportunity to more students.”
The college’s scholarships will be evaluated first in coordination with legal counsel, she said, before working with donors that also provide scholarship dollars.
More than 300 scholarship opportunities are advertised, with over $1 million in scholarship funds available to students.
The college’s website also includes links to external scholarship opportunities for specific student groups, including several for Hispanic students and one for transgender students.
The GRCC Board of Trustees work session was the first since the resignation of President Charle Lepper was announced April 14, following being placed on paid administrative leave in March “pending a review of his contract.”
The board still hasn’t provided students or the community a reason as it tackles the DEI issues.
There have been multiple executive orders from the Trump administration seeking to end DEI programs, both in schools and in the federal workforce, along with a Feb. 14 Dear Colleague letter published by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.
“The landscape is changing based on that information and continues to change, so we are evaluating based on that,” Freiburger said.
The letter gave K-12 schools, colleges and universities 14 days to eliminate diversity initiatives, including “race-based decision-making,” or risk losing federal funding.
It was signed by Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor, and said programs like DEI promote discrimination in “less direct, but equally insidious, ways.”
Freiburger told board members on Wednesday that most Michigan colleges are in a similar spot to GRCC – somewhere in the middle.
She described it as “trying to keep students at the center of that conversation … and continuing to serve who we serve while making some … minor changes to try to keep us out of that … perhaps too much risk status.”
The Trump administration has begun investigating some Michigan schools for DEI-related practices, with Grand Valley State University (GVSU) and the University of Michigan facing scrutiny for alleged “race-exclusionary practices” in their education programs.
RELATED: Trump administration investigates GVSU for alleged racial discrimination
“We don’t know where this is going or how they ultimately will start to pick and choose where they will enforce,” Freiburger told board members, adding that GRCC is talking to other community college leaders and their general counsel “all the time.”
Freiburger told board members the college has several large grants up for renewal this summer.
“Certainly federal funding is important to us and our students,” she told MLive. “We also want to make sure we’re serving students appropriately and keeping students at the center of any conversation.”
Brandy Johnson, president of the Michigan Community College Association (MCCA), said in a March interview that many community colleges across the state are still assessing compliance.
At this point, she said it’s important to understand that the Dear Colleague letter and a subsequent clarifying document aren’t necessarily the same thing as a legal order.
“It’s an interpretation of a Supreme Court case,” she said, referencing the June 2023 decision striking down the use of race in college admissions, commonly referred to as affirmative action. The practice was previously in place in some form since the 1960s.
RELATED: Supreme Court strikes down affirmative action in college admissions, says race cannot be a factor
At this point, the MCAA is providing resources for its member colleges, Johnson said, including guidance and analysis from national community college associations.
“There’s a lot of folks talking about this,” she said, “and it can be really overwhelming to try and stay abreast of every commentary or analysis that’s released.”
One of the factors influencing how individual community colleges respond is the degree of federal funding they’re set to receive, Johnson said.
While community colleges don’t typically receive large research grants and contracts to the same degree as four-year universities, some – depending on their locations and offerings – do have federal partnerships or grants.
RELATED: University of Michigan curbs DEI initiatives amid Trump threats
A few Michigan community colleges have contracts or a “direct relationship” with the U.S. Department of Defense, for example.
Northwestern Michigan College has The Great Lakes Maritime Academy, which has some U.S. Navy affiliations. Macomb Community College has a “huge workforce contract” related to building new Navy submarines, she said.
“They might have different pressures to modify based on that relationship.”
Johnson said where community colleges are located, and the taxable districts they serve, may also make a difference when it comes to their response.
“Different boards of trustees may have different risk tolerance,” she said, “or feel that they need to be responsive to different constituencies they serve.”
At GRCC, Freiburger said there could also be changes at the Bob and Aleicia Woodrick Center for Inclusion and Multicultural Affairs “to make sure that we are using the work that’s already taken place and the strategies that are embedded in those groups now, yet opening them up so that we’re truly serving a larger group of students.”
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