GW Law shut down its diversity, equity and inclusion website sometime after December 2024, according to web archives.
The webpage’s removal occurred sometime after December 2024 and before March 3, according to web archives. The archives show no saved snapshots of the page between January and February, and the site currently reads “Page Cannot be Accessed,” stating that visitors either cannot view the webpage because it was “unpublished from public view” or because visitors lack “sufficient permission” to view the page.
A University spokesperson did not return a request for comment on the site’s removal.
The University’s DEI webpages for its other schools, colleges and graduate programs, as well as the University-wide Office for Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, remain unchanged and accessible as of Wednesday.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in January instructing the Department of Education to investigate whether universities with endowments exceeding $1 billion — which includes GW — have engaged in discriminatory practices to advance DEI. Earlier this month, an appeals court lifted a nationwide injunction issued in February that had prevented the investigation.
The law school’s strategic plan for 2022 to 2025 lists building a culture for a diverse community to “thrive” as an initiative.
The law school’s Career Development Office, which includes an “Inclusion at GW Law” page, is still available to access and provides students with resources to write “diversity personal statements” for scholarships. The website lists career fairs for diverse and minority students from the 2023-24 academic year, like the LGBTQ+ Bar Annual Lavender Law Conference and Career Fair as well as the Delaware Minority Job Fair.
Granberg said in a message to the University community earlier this month that officials are doing all they can to “safeguard” the University’s mission, values and operations amid executive orders and federal investigations. Granberg said in the message that officials are conscious of not acting “precipitously” in anticipation of future federal and legal actions, adding that the University will do “what is required” to protect its access to federal funds.
“We take pride in fostering a vibrant and engaged community of students, faculty, and staff and creating an excellent and supportive environment for living, learning, and working,” Granberg wrote in the message. “We are committed to ensuring our community includes voices that reflect a diversity of life experiences and perspectives.”
Interim U.S. Attorney for D.C. Ed Martin sent a letter to Georgetown Law School on Feb. 17 demanding the institution eliminate DEI efforts, asserting that his office would not hire students from institutions that teach DEI. Georgetown Law School Dean William Treanor defended the school’s curriculum in a letter to Martin on March 6.
“Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution,” Treanor wrote in the letter.
GW released a diversity action plan last September, which included new and existing actions to address recommendations on diversity made by students, faculty and staff over the course of two years. The plan included allocating new funding for allowing every school and college to create a DEI office, with eight schools already having one and a ninth in the process of establishing one.
GW peer schools Northeastern University and the University of Miami shut down DEI offices and removed all mentions of DEI from their websites since Trump’s January executive order. Northeastern officials said the school shut down its offices to comply with federal law and UMiami officials said the changes come in response to Trump’s executive orders.
