African American Studies Department are Dwindling Across U.S. Colleges

A Washington Post report found that over a dozen U.S. colleges and universities have scaled back or downright eliminated Black, African, and African American studies departments and majors over the past two years. So much so, nationwide completions for African American studies degrees dropped to the lowest levels in two decades — a number administrators now cite as justification for the next round of cuts.

The private colleges and public universities, including the University of Iowa and the University of Toledo, have either reduced, merged or eliminated Black programs or course offerings, according to a Washington Post article published recently.

The University of Iowa announced the elimination of its undergraduate African American studies major and the closing of the department after enrollment fell to just nine students. The Toledo university suspended admissions to its Africana studies bachelor’s degree program to comply with Ohio Senate Bill 1, as reported by News 5 Cleveland.

The 2025 bill, known as the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, bans diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, prohibits strikes by public university faculty, and requires public universities to eliminate undergraduate majors that average fewer than five graduates per year over a three-year span. Coincidentally, Africana studies were on the chopping block.

Indiana University-Bloomington ended more than 100 of its academic degree programs after a state bill passed that introduced several new public higher education policies. The phaseout included MA programs in African Studies and the African American and African Diaspora Studies Ph.D. programs, according to Forbes.

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The pattern extended to the University of North Texas. Staring down a $45 million budget deficit, the university shut down or merged multiple degree programs, targeting its Africana studies and women’s and gender studies minors.

Texas A&M University canceled several courses, including Introduction to Race and Ethnicity, Religions of the World, and Ethics in Public Policy, the Texas Tribune reported.

Higher education institutions heavily expanded racial studies programs following racial justice protests in 2020 after George Floyd was killed by a white police officer in Minneapolis, according to the EDU Ledger. Six years after Floyd’s death, federal data show those same academic paths are now systematically shrinking.

But the question remains: Why? The answer is complex.

Data reviewed by the Washington Post showed that fewer than 700 African American studies degrees were awarded nationwide in each of the past three years — the lowest level in 20 years. For the universities, those dwindling degree numbers are justification for cutting the programs.

When a major or minor produces fewer graduates, it won’t generate the tuition revenue required to justify dedicated faculty, specialized coursework and departmental overhead. Therefore, those programs become the easiest targets for downsizing or total elimination.

With those internal budget pressures and the Trump administration’s aggressive rollback of DEI — which it condemned as an “unlawful, corrosive, and pernicious identity-based spoils system” — university boards are handed the political green light to erase African studies from the curriculum entirely.

However, feedback on the higher education cuts is split.

Jafari Sinclaire Allen, director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University, says the cuts could damage important research and training for new scholars, the Washington Post reported.

On the other side of the debate, others are calling out what they view as a self-inflicted crisis.

Manhattan Institute policy analyst Neetu Arnold says, “It’s hypocritical for department chairs to deride the cuts as political when they’re the ones who have allowed their departments to become highly politicized hotbeds of scholar-activism,” Arnold said, per the Washington Post, adding that the cuts are more likely driven by low enrollment rather than political motives.