Trump’s Latest Target in the DEI Crackdown? A Federal Website for Minority Scholarships
CareerOneStop, a federally funded career and education database, is designed to help women, students of color, and people with disabilities easily search for college scholarships. However, the site is now on the verge of a major overhaul in the Trump administration’s latest crackdown on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).
According to its website, the U.S. Department of Labor-sponsored platform is a “source for employment information and inspiration,” a “place to manage your career” with “tools to help job seekers, students, businesses and career professionals.” It lists hundreds of scholarships specifically geared toward underrepresented groups, women, and minority students, and can be searched by certain criteria, including race, sex, LGBTQ+ status and ethnicity—but that’s all about to change.
In a broader crackdown on federal DEI programs and race-conscious initiatives, the Trump administration is actively examining federal tools and resources that facilitate or promote identity-based funding opportunities, The Washington Post reported.
As of Friday, CareerOneStop continued to list hundreds of funding opportunities, but with demographic restrictions, according to The Post. Among them were a $10,000 scholarship for African American female law students and $16,000 fellowships for minority students pursuing doctoral science degrees.
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Even beyond CareerOneStop, the National Scholarship Providers Association found that the share of scholarships it tracks with eligibility requirements based on race, ethnicity and gender declined from 15% in 2023 to 11% this year, according to The Post.
President Donald Trump has made it crystal clear that he plans to “terminate every diversity, equity, and inclusion program across the entire Federal Government.” In his first week in office, he signed multiple executive actions to eliminate what the administration deemed “radical and wasteful DEI programs and preferencing.”
Last January, the White House called out the Biden Administration for what they called “forced illegal and immoral discrimination programs” under the guise of inclusion in virtually all aspects of the government.
That Biden administration initiative, according to the White House, “demonstrated immense public waste and shameful discrimination,” and those DEI mandates, policies, and programs were swiftly terminated. But that’s not all.
The U.S. Department of Education sent a letter to colleges and universities across the country in February 2025, labeling race-conscious student programming as unlawful racial discrimination and threatening to withhold federal funding from any institution that failed to comply within 14 days of receiving the letter.
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the Post: “President [Donald] Trump was resoundingly elected with a clear mandate to end divisive, racist policies and restore merit and efficiency”—a promise the administration has moved quickly to enact.
