The University says recent federal court rulings striking down a major piece of the Trump administration’s effort against diversity, equity and inclusion do not change its current course. The Board of Visitors’ March 7, 2025 resolution dissolving the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Community Partnerships and directing a broader compliance review of University programs remains in place and continues to guide the University’s DEI policies.
The Board voted unanimously March 7, 2025 to eliminate the University’s central DEI office and require all programs, policies and practices to be reviewed for compliance with federal civil rights law. The Resolution explicitly cited several federal actions as the legal basis for those changes — including a Jan. 21, 2025 executive order titled “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” and the Department of Education’s Feb. 14, 2025 “Dear Colleague” letter and a March 1, 2025 FAQ document — stating that University policies must align with federal civil rights law as interpreted through those directives.
The “Dear Colleague” letter and related FAQ guidance has since been blocked and invalidated in federal court, while the executive order remains in effect but is the subject of ongoing legal challenges.
Dear Colleague Letter and March 1, 2025 FAQ
A “Dear Colleague” letter is a form of agency guidance — not a law — used to explain how a federal agency interprets existing statutes. In this case, the Department of Education’s Feb. 14, 2025 letter warned that a wide range of DEI programs at universities who receive federal funding could violate Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — a federal law that prohibits discrimination based on race, color or national origin in federally funded programs — and put federal funding at risk. The letter also relied on the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard — which barred the use of race-conscious admissions in higher education — and suggested that the ruling should apply beyond admissions to many aspects of campus life.
The University’s School of Law’s Education Rights Institute issued a document in March 2025 explaining the meaning of the “Dear Colleague” letter and said that the letter attempted to go further than prior law.
“The ‘Dear Colleague’ letter attempts to broaden the applicability of [Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard] and reinterpret existing civil rights protections and thus violates its own terms in trying to ‘create new legal standards,’” the document reads.
Legal analysts from law firm Fisher Phillips LLP said in an analysis published on their website that the letter caused “shockwaves” in the higher education community due to its definition of DEI and the Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard ruling.
“In sum, [the letter] targeted educational institutions that receive federal financial assistance from the [Department of Education], claiming that common DEI programs could violate federal law and put their funding in jeopardy,” the article said. “It also asserted that the [Supreme Court] 2023 decision that prohibited race-conscious admissions should be extended to many other educational operations, including all aspects of student, academic and campus life.”
The March 1, 2025 FAQ document, issued by the Education Department and cited in the March 7, 2025 Board Resolution, served as a companion to the “Dear Colleague” letter, explaining how the Education Department believed civil rights law should apply to campus programming, training and student support services. Together, the letter and FAQ shaped how many universities — including U.Va. — initially interpreted their legal obligations under the new federal guidance.
Legal challenges to federal guidance
That guidance has since been dismantled in court. On Aug. 14, 2025, Stephanie Gallagher, district court judge for the District of Maryland, issued a nationwide injunction blocking enforcement of the “Dear Colleague” Letter, finding that the Education Department had attempted to impose a significant change in policy through guidance without following proper procedural requirements.
“The government did not merely remind educators that discrimination is illegal: it initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished,” Gallagher wrote in the opinion.
The Department of Education initially appealed that decision to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, however, the Department of Education withdrew its appeal without any explanation Jan. 21, effectively abandoning its effort to defend the policy. That move left the lower-court ruling in place, meaning the “Dear Colleague” letter could no longer be enforced by the Department of Education.
On Feb. 18, following the withdrawal of the appeal, Landya McCafferty, district court judge for the District of New Hampshire, issued a final ruling permanently invalidating the letter. This ruling provided a permanent and final resolution to the case, effectively converting the temporary pause of the preliminary injunction into a total legal victory for the plaintiffs — a coalition of education and civil rights groups such as the National Education Association and American Civil Liberties Union affiliates.
The New Hampshire ruling also addressed other elements of the Department of Education’s DEI enforcement framework, including a certification requirement and related guidance. According to the ACLU, the court’s final order permanently invalidated both the letter and a subsequent certification requirement that schools attest to compliance with the Department of Education’s interpretation of civil rights law. The broader litigation also encompassed challenges to the Department of Education’s “End DEI” portal — a complaint website used to report potential violations. While the court did not directly order the portal’s removal, it found key aspects of the Department of Education’s approach unlawful, and the portal has since been taken down as part of those broader changes.
University response to court rulings
Despite those developments in court, University spokesperson Bethanie Glover said in an email statement the University's current policies — including the dissolution of its DEI office and its ongoing civil rights compliance review of programs and practices — remain unchanged and the March 7, 2025 Board resolution continues to govern the University’s approach.
“Board of Visitors resolutions, such as the March 7, 2025 resolution … remain in effect until the Board takes additional action,” Glover wrote.
Walt Heinecke, past president of the U.Va. chapter of the American Association of University Professors and associate professor of Education and Human Development, said he believes the Board acted prematurely in dismantling DEI programs, given that key legal questions are still being contested in federal courts.
“The Youngkin-[appointed] Board last year … shut down DEI programming at U.Va. in an act of ideologically aligned anticipatory compliance,” Heinecke said. “Everything that happened after that was ideological, political and based on coercion.”
According to a University Counsel FAQ page, the Department of Education's withdrawal of its Feb. 14, 2025 appeal “does not affect the compliance review or the agreement.” The page says that the University’s October 2025 agreement with the Justice Department requires the University to apply Justice Department guidance issued July 29, 2025 to the extent that guidance is consistent with court rulings. The FAQ also says one piece of that Justice Department guidance — related to “sex-based boundaries rooted in biological differences,” including access to single-sex spaces and athletics — is no longer required following the Fourth Circuit rulings, while the remainder “broadly aligns” with the University’s own May 2025 guidance.
While the Board’s March 7, 2025 resolution, which dissolved the University’s office of DEI, explicitly relied on the “Dear Colleague” letter and the March 1, 2025 FAQ, the University later entered into a separate October 2025 agreement with the Justice Department that paused federal investigations in exchange for ongoing reporting and compliance commitments through 2028.
Heinecke said that the agreement limits the University’s ability to respond to evolving legal rulings. He also pointed to the law firm McGuireWoods LLP, which the University hired and paid more than $1.8 million to between April and August of 2025 to provide legal service related to the Justice Department investigations.
“The agreement with the Trump [Justice Department] and the parallel McGuireWoods ‘compliance review’ constrain our institution from responding to the shifting legal rulings,” Heinecke said. “Our University lives in fear and is taking the path of ‘just keep your head down and do what you are told,’ despite the consequences for academic freedom.”
Anti-DEI executive orders
The broader federal effort to restrict DEI includes two Trump executive orders issued in January 2025. One directed federal agencies to eliminate DEI programming within the federal government. The second — cited in the March 7, 2025 Board resolution — aimed to restrict what the administration described as unlawful DEI practices among recipients of federal funding.
Those executive orders have followed a different legal path than the “Dear Colleague” letter. On Feb. 21, 2025, a federal district court blocked portions of the orders. But Feb. 6, 2026, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit vacated that preliminary injunction, meaning the earlier court order blocking parts of the executive orders was removed. This allowed the federal government to enforce provisions requiring recipients of federal funding to certify compliance with civil rights law and potentially face termination of funding if found in violation.
The court held that the plaintiffs — the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and other education-related groups — were unlikely to succeed because they had brought only facial challenges, meaning they argued the orders were unconstitutional overall rather than in specific applications. At the same time, the court made clear that future lawsuits could still challenge how the government implements those policies and that other cases challenging the orders remain pending in federal courts.
Fisher Phillips cautioned in an analysis article published on their website that institutions should not read the “Dear Colleague” ruling as a full retreat.
“Institutions should not interpret this as a complete retreat from DEI scrutiny … Other federal agencies … continue to pursue enforcement actions against what they characterize as unlawful DEI programs,” the article said.
Other universities have also declined to reverse anti-DEI changes after the “Dear Colleague” letter was struck down. In February, the University of Alaska’s Board of Regents said it had no immediate plans to rescind a similar policy to “ban references to DEI,” with a spokesperson telling Alaska Beacon, an Alaskan-based news organization, that “the direction of enforcement and potential risk has not gone away.” Unlike U.Va., the University of Alaska has not entered into a formal agreement with the Justice Department.
Heinecke also criticized University and state leadership for not challenging the agreement.
“The fact that the new Board and president have signaled they do not intend to challenge the DOJ agreement … is disappointing,” Heinecke said. “If the Board and president won’t find the courage to stand up to extortion tactics, we hope the governor and the attorney general will.”
While the “Dear Colleague” letter has been invalidated, other federal guidance and the University’s agreement with the Justice Department continue to shape the University’s approach. Under that agreement, the University is required to submit regular quarterly compliance reports, with the next report scheduled for release in the coming weeks.
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