On April 23, President Donald Trump issued an executive order revamping federal engagement with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The order revokes a Biden-era initiative and reinstates a White House-led framework with language emphasizing excellence, innovation, and long-term viability, while notably omitting references to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

The order establishes a new White House Initiative on HBCUs housed within the Executive Office of the President, reconstitutes the President's Board of Advisors on HBCUs under the U.S. Department of Education (DOE), and outlines a broad agenda focused on fiscal stability, infrastructure modernization, and workforce pipeline development.

Although couched in supportive terms, the order's legal and political posture signals that the administration may view DEI-centered federal support for HBCUs as incompatible with its approach to education policy — raising both opportunities and questions for HBCU leaders.

What This Means for HBCUs

The order sets an ambitious agenda while steering clear of terms and frameworks that characterized prior administrations' support for HBCUs. It promotes a model of institutional excellence grounded in workforce alignment, private partnerships, and modernization, and it emphasizes agency accountability through annual White House reporting.

Key features of the order include:

• Creation of a White House-led HBCU Initiative tasked with cross-sector coordination to support campus operations, student development, and workforce readiness.
• Expanded private-sector engagement, with a focus on partnerships in technology, health care, finance, and manufacturing.
• Focus on infrastructure and fiscal stability, including upgraded technology and institutional planning support.
• Further implementation of the 2020 HBCU PARTNERS Act, with an emphasis on agency coordination to encourage HBCU participation in federal programs and grants.
• Dismantling of prior equity-focused structures, including the revocation of executive order 14041 (White House Initiative on Advancing Educational Equity, Excellence and Economic Opportunity Through Historically Black Colleges and Universities) and the termination of the EPA's HBCUs and Minority Serving Institutions Advisory Council.

This framing reflects a deeper shift: federal support is now more tightly coupled to institutional performance and alignment with administration priorities, rather than efforts to remedy historic disparities.

Next Steps for HBCU Leaders

In the coming months, HBCU leaders and other stakeholders should take a proactive approach in evaluating how this policy shift may impact funding access, partnership opportunities, and regulatory engagement. Institutions should:

• Review institutional goals and federal partnerships to ensure alignment with new policy language around innovation, infrastructure, and workforce needs.
• Engage with the DOE and executive branch channels as the new initiative and board take shape, particularly in anticipation of the forthcoming White House HBCU Summit.
• Assess internal planning and reporting systems to ensure readiness for increased scrutiny on fiscal management, technological capacity, and measurable outcomes.
• Reexamine public-private partnerships to identify opportunities for expanded student programming in priority sectors.
• Continue monitoring litigation and policy developments, as courts weigh in on the administration's broader civil rights enforcement strategies.

Broader Context: A Pivot and a Legally Contested Space

This executive order continues the administration's redefinition and reshaping of federal education policy. Recent federal actions — including the adjustment of Title IX protections, the DOE's Title VI certification demand for K-12 schools, and efforts to eliminate "radical indoctrination" in curriculum — reflect a deliberate departure from equity-based framing across multiple levels of education.

However, this approach is also facing legal challenges. Multiple federal courts have issued injunctions against the DOE's February 2025 "Dear Colleague" letter, which characterized DEI programming as a violation of Title VI and directed schools to eliminate it. These rulings suggest that there may be legal limits to how far the administration can push its reinterpretation of civil rights statutes. That context is important for HBCUs, particularly if future agency actions tie federal funding to specific compliance expectations or reframe eligibility in ways that marginalize historical access strategies.

Although the current order emphasizes institutional growth and national competitiveness, its departure from the language of equity — and its potential to reshape how federal agencies allocate funding — may lead to litigation, especially if implementation efforts extend beyond the executive branch's statutory authority.

Final Takeaway

The administration's reboot of the federal HBCU initiative offers institutions new opportunities for engagement while creating new uncertainties around longstanding federal commitments. Given that virtually every presidential administration over the past several decades has reemphasized a commitment to HBCUs — and many HBCUs have still faced funding challenges — the key issue will be how the administration implements its commitments.

As implementation begins, HBCU leaders should prepare for a changed federal landscape, one that reorients support around fiscal strength, workforce development, and performance benchmarks. For more information, please contact us or your regular Parker Poe contact.

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