At universities in California, Illinois, Louisiana, and Texas, students report changes to clubs, diminished research opportunities, and fears for international students’ safety.

Black History Month event, canceled. A lab working to fight hunger, shuttered. Student visas revoked, then reinstated, at least for now. Opportunities for students pursuing science careers fading.

The first six months of the Trump administration have brought a hailstorm of changes to the nation’s colleges and universities. While the president’s face-offs with Harvard and Columbia have generated the most attention, students on campuses throughout the country are noticing the effects of the administration’s cuts to scientific and medical research, its clampdown on any efforts promoting diversity equity and inclusion (DEI), newly aggressive policies for students with loan debt, the revocation of visas for international students, and more.

Many of the administration’s actions are being challenged in court, but they are influencing the way students interact with each other, what support they can get from their institutions—and even whether they feel safe in this nation.

The Hechinger Report traveled to campuses around the country to look at what these changes mean for students. Reporters visited universities in four states—California, Illinois, Louisiana, and Texas—to understand this new era for higher education.

Louisiana State University

Last fall, Louisiana State University student A’shawna Smith had an idea for a new campus group to educate students about their legal rights and broader problems in the criminal justice system. Smith, a sociology major, had spent the prior summer interning at a law firm and noticed how many clients didn’t know their rights after an arrest.

Smith, now a rising senior, called it Injustice Reform and soon recruited classmates and a campus adviser. They wrote a mission statement and trained as student group leaders. On February 20, LSU’s student government, which awards money to campus groups that comes from student fees, gave them $1,200; Smith and her classmates planned to use the award to recruit members and organize events.

But on April 8, Injustice Reform’s treasurer received a text message from Cortney Greavis, LSU’s student government adviser. She said LSU was rescinding the money: The group’s mission statement ran afoul of new federal and state restrictions on DEI. Its mission mentions racial disparities and police brutality, but the organizers were never told which words violated the rules. Smith and fellow leaders started chipping in their own money to keep the group going: $10 here and there, whatever they could afford, said Bella Porché, a rising senior on the group’s executive board.

Canceling awards to student groups is one way students say administrators at LSU, the state’s flagship university, have restricted what they can do and say since the US Department of Education wrote to schools and colleges nationwide on Valentine’s Day. The letter described DEI efforts—designed to rectify current and historic discrimination—as discriminatory and threatened schools with the loss of federal money unless they ended the consideration of race in admissions, financial aid, housing, training, and other practices.

Since the letter, discussion of DEI on campus “has become an anti-gay, anti-Black sort of conversation,” said Emma Miller, a rising senior and elected student senator. “People who are minorities don’t feel safe anymore, don’t feel represented, don’t feel seen, because DEI is being wiped away and their university is not saying anything.”

In a March 7 report, the university detailed dozens of changes made to comply with the letter’s demands. For example, it ended any preference granted to students from historically underrepresented groups for certain privately funded scholarships; opened membership in school-funded student organizations—like a women-in-business group—to all; and canceled activities perceived to emphasize race, even a fitness class kicking off Black History Month.

By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You may unsubscribe or adjust your preferences at any time. You can read our Privacy Policy here.

Student government leaders say the restrictions hinder their ability to operate. Rising junior Tyhlar Holliway, a member of the student government’s Black Caucus, said school administrators essentially shut down the caucus’s proposal that the student government issue a statement after the Department of Education letter in support of DEI programs and initiatives.

LSU public relations staff did not respond to interview requests or to an e-mailed list of questions, and the school’s civil rights and Title IX division director declined to speak.

Miller said administrators have told student leaders that all their proposed legislation must be reviewed by the school’s general counsel for compliance with the March 7 guidelines. The administration, for example, blocked a student government bill to fund a Black hair-care event designed to help students prepare for career and professional opportunities, said senior Paris Holman, a student government member. “We have conferences and interviews and need to know how to take care of our hair,” said Holman, who is Black.

Students have also tailored the language of other bills to avoid the appearance of support for DEI. Holman said that in one case the student senate changed the language in a bill funding an end-of-year event for a minority student organization to remove any reference to the organization as serving minority students.

The school also overrode student government decisions about which groups, like A’shawna Smith’s, could be funded by student fees. In February, the student government voted to provide $641 to help a pre-med student, who is Black, attend a student medical education conference, in part so she could share what she’d learn with other pre-med students. A few weeks later, she received an e-mail from Greavis, the student government adviser, saying she wouldn’t be able to attend with university funds because that money could no longer be used for “DEI-related events, initiatives, programs, or travel.” Greavis didn’t respond to requests for an interview.

The e-mail didn’t specify why the medical conference crossed the line. But the sponsoring organization’s mission statement notes its commitment to “supporting current and future underrepresented minority medical students,” and a conference plenary speaker was scheduled to address the “enduring case for DEI in medicine.” Fewer than 6 percent of doctors are Black and research has shown improved health outcomes for Black patients who are seen by physicians of the same race.

“It doesn’t feel like a democracy,” said Holman of serving in student government at this moment.

She and other students say the university’s actions are starting to change the broader culture at LSU, which serves nearly 40,000 undergraduate and graduate students on its campus of Italian Renaissance buildings shaded by magnolias and Southern live oaks. About 60 percent of students are white and 18 percent are Black, according to federal data.

Mila Fair, a sophomore journalism major and a reporter for the campus TV station, said students tell her they’re afraid to join protests, in part because of LSU’s new anti-DEI rules and the national crackdown on student demonstrations. Those who do attend are often afraid to go on camera with her, she said.

Latin American studies professor Andrew Sluyter said administrators normally listen to the student government—even more than to the faculty government—but now worry about students getting the school into “political hot water.” He had his own run-in with the DEI ban: As part of a February effort to scrub school websites of diversity references, in which the university purged hundreds of webpages referencing DEI-related content, LSU deleted a 2022 press release announcing a prestigious fellowship he’d won that mentioned “higher education’s racial inequities.”

Students recognize the pressure LSU is under from the federal government, but they want administrators to stand up for them, said graduate student Alicia Cerquone, a student senator. “We want some sort of communication from the university that shows commitment to its community, that they have our backs and they’ll protect students,” she said.