University of Pittsburgh web pages referencing diversity initiatives began to disappear from the Internet Thursday, six days after the U.S. Department of Education issued a letter guiding institutions of higher education to remove any scholarships or programs that use race as a criterion for selection. 

PublicSource reached out to the university for comment, but did not immediately receive a response. 

On Feb. 14, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights issued a letter to “colleagues” in higher education claiming that institutions have discriminated against “white and Asian students” and asserting that “programs may appear neutral on their face” but “are, in fact, motivated by racial considerations.”

The letter instructed all educational institutions to cease “efforts to circumvent prohibitions on the use of race” in programs, or face loss of federal funding. It indicated that the department would begin to act on the threat by Feb. 28.

PublicSource identified several web pages that had, until recently, described “anti-racist” programs or those focused on faculty from underrepresented or minority backgrounds that, as of Thursday afternoon, were no longer available online. PublicSource is not identifying those pages at the request of sources who feared their programs would be targeted if they appeared in news stories.

One webpage was live as recently as Jan. 25, on which a school within the university was described as intentionally “weaving our commitment to fostering justice, equity, diversity and inclusion” throughout the department. Statistics outlining the percentage of minority, women and LGBTQ+ identifying students, staff, scholars and leaders were available. The link is no longer available. 

Another undergraduate research program that previously only targeted Black, Hispanic and Latinx and Native American students has undergone a name change, with the word “diversity” eliminated. The former mission statement of the program read that promoting diversity in the scientific workforce helped “address and eliminate” health disparities in clinical trials. Now, the program is open to any student and all mentions of diversity are removed from the mission statement.  

Still surviving as of mid-afternoon: The page for Pitt’s Office for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion, the Office of the Provost’s Diversity & Inclusion page, and the university’s diversity and anti-racism statements, among others.

The Department of Education letter doesn’t have the force of law. National higher education groups have urged colleges to not engage in “over-compliance” by doing things such as scrubbing websites. The American Association of University Professors has opposed the letter, with its president writing that: “The way to confront those intent on dismantling our democracy is to join together in mass action.” 

The actions by Pitt are part of a larger picture in which universities try to find a path through the whiplash change in approaches to race as President Joe Biden handed the reins to President Donald Trump.