If ever there was a question whether we need Heterodox Academy (HxA) to protect and promote academic freedom, this week we have the answer.

Our mission at HxA includes first and foremost nonpartisan defense of academic freedom in higher ed research and teaching, including primarily the promotion of open inquiry and viewpoint diversity.

With the new Trump administration issuing executive orders at an unprecedented pace—a pace fairly described by the Chronicle of Higher Education as a “blitz”—our staff, led by Director of Policy Joe Cohn, is working diligently to make sense of what’s occurring so you can be intelligently informed about these issues. We are also working to do more, namely to try to influence actions in a positive direction, as with HxA President John Tomasi’s letter to President Trump on Monday.

While the HxA leadership team analyzes and prepares to weigh in on the new administration’s moves, parsing out good legal interpretations and policies from poor ones, here’s a rundown of some of what’s caught our attention.

Under the new executive order on Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing, federal agencies are being directed to

terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and “environmental justice” offices and positions (including but not limited to “Chief Diversity Officer” positions); all “equity action plans,” “equity” actions, initiatives, or programs, “equity-related” grants or contracts; and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors, or grantees.

Under this directive, within 60 days, federal agencies must terminate any DEI or DEIA performance requirements they previously imposed on recipients of grants.

“This could have huge implications on institutions of higher education who are frequent recipients of federal research grants,” according to HxA Director of Policy Joe Cohn.

DEI has been so woven into the fabric of many federal funding systems, it might be compared to a common line of code written into thousands of programs not primarily about DEI. Ironically, researchers who reluctantly found themselves playing along with DEI for years may now be harmed by a political “correction” they’ve reasonably hoped would instead help them. This could be particularly damaging to researchers who have grants approved but not yet funded and who see their grants terminated as a result.

To be clear, HxA does not take a position on many applications of DEI initiatives. That’s because many are outside our purview.

However, we do object to the practice of requiring specific statements of allegiance to partisan views for hiring, promotion, and funding, as these represent political litmus tests that violate academic freedom. Our initiative on open inquiry in STEM (Sciences, Technology, Engineering, and Math), launched in 2023, has worked to explore and address this concern, as did our recent sponsorship of a conference on censorship in STEM. Our goal is to ensure that one partisan test is not replaced by another.

To that end, we are also working to analyze and respond to a second new executive order, this one on Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit Based Opportunity. This directive lays the groundwork for production of a report which will propose a “strategic enforcement plan” identifying potential federal measures “to deter DEI programs or principles…that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences.”

This plan is to investigate “publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars.” The order seeks to “encourage the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences and comply with all Federal civil-rights laws.”

As noted above, HxA opposes the use of mandatory DEI statements in the faculty hiring and promotion processes because they have been used as political litmus tests to screen out political dissenters. But we are equally concerned about DEI bans impinging on the academic freedom of faculty researchers and teachers.

Fortunately, this second executive order provides an important carve-out—one that appears to be a response to court challenges to Florida’s Stop WOKE Act. That state law declared certain ideas associated with DEI and critical race theory were inherently discriminatory, violated federal law, and thus should be banned from college classrooms.

In the case of the Stop WOKE Act, Cohn explains, “A federal court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the act’s higher education provisions from going into effect, precisely because of the free speech and academic freedom implications of a classroom ban.”

The second executive order from Trump cited above preemptively addresses this issue, stating:

This order does not prohibit persons teaching at a Federally funded institution of higher education as part of a larger course of academic instruction from advocating for, endorsing, or promoting the unlawful employment or contracting practices prohibited by this order.

Still, Cohn notes, this executive order is concerning for academics because it calls for agencies to explore the possibility of using sub-regulatory guidance as an enforcement tool.

“The proposed use of sub-regulatory guidance is problematic,” Cohn explains, “because guidance does not go through the notice and comment process that allows unelected bodies to impose binding rules, but has a history of being enforced as if it had. The problem here is that sub-regulatory guidance is being suggested as a part of an enforcement plan.”

In addition to these executive orders, other actions are being taken that at least temporarily may be impacting the ability of federally-funded university researchers to do their normal work.

For example, the Washington post reported Tuesday, “The Trump administration has instructed federal health agencies to pause all external communications, such as health advisories, weekly scientific reports, updates to websites and social media posts.” These communication channels are part of the complex national web of federal and academic health research.

As we sort out what’s happening and work to push for progress in the direction of greater freedom for research and learning in higher ed, we urge you to sign up to HxA’s bulletins and Free the Inquiry newsletter, where we regularly bring you sharp and timely analysis of federal and state regulatory moves as well as university’s responses to them.

And if you support our nonpartisan work to defend, promote, and protect open inquiry and viewpoint diversity in higher education, please consider donating to HxA today.