On January 20, 2025, his first full day in office, President Donald Trump issued Executive Order
14151 directing federal agencies to terminate all “equity-related” grants and contracts. He signed a follow-up order the next day, Executive Order 14173, requiring federal contractors to certify that they don’t promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
On its face, these executive orders are patently unconstitutional.
On February 3, 2025, a lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland
seeking to enjoin enforcement of these executive orders. On February 21, 2025, a federal judge for the District of Maryland issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of portions of these executive orders. The judge found that the plaintiffs (the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, the American Association of University Professors, Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, and the mayor and city council of Baltimore, Maryland) were likely to prevail in their challenges to these provisions as violating the First Amendment’s right to free speech and being unconstitutionally vague in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
On Thursday, March 26, 2025, another federal judge, a judge for the Northern District of Illinois, issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting enforcement of portions of these two executive orders.
Meanwhile, the University of Arizona’s response to these patently unconstitutional executive
orders was not to challenge them in court as it might have done but to roll over and comply. The university’s president, Suresh Garimella, stated he would take steps to comply with Trump administration orders against DEI. On February 18, 2025, the University of Arizona took down the websites for its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Cultural and Resource Centers. Additionally, the university removed from its land acknowledgment a statement proclaiming the university to be “committed to diversity and inclusion.”
When I learned the University of Arizona had taken the cowardly approach of being complicit in enforcing these unconstitutional executive orders, rather than challenging them as it could have done successfully, I resigned from my volunteer position as a member of the Board of Visitors of the University of Arizona College of Law.
I no longer wish to have my name associated with an institution that has capitulated to
authoritarianism and censorship and that has moved from one promoting diversity, equity,
inclusion to one promoting exclusion, inequity, and uniformity through monoculturalism (focusing upon white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant, cis-gendered, heterosexual males born in the U.S. to American citizens).
Amelia is a retired Arizona attorney who served as Chief Deputy Pima County Attorney for almost 20 years.
Discover more from Blog for Arizona
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Could one presume that Suresh Garimella himself is a recipient of the benefit of UofA’s DEI policies? So why doesn’t he have the courage to follow the other universities’ lawsuits? The attorneys at our Law School could certainly mount an effective challenge against the illegal, unconstitutional executive orders.
Amelia C. Cramer has the courage of her convictions and I applaud her.
Amelia is ro be commended for her principled stand against the University of Arizona’s compliance with these executive orders.
Since these orders are being challenged in court by other institutions, it seems the UArizona could have stood its ground and followed suit rather than capitulate. This is how tyrannys take hold.
“I agree with David. You will be remembered. It seems like such courage is a scarce commodity among university leaders these days when it’s needed most.”
The UofA must stand up to oppression, not kowtow to it.
I admire your response to this tyranny. You will be remembered.