Baala Shakya, Staff Photographer

Administrators asked department chairs and directors of graduate studies to report all diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI — initiatives in their units through a confidential survey sent last week.

The News obtained a copy of the survey, which was created by the Office of General Counsel and emailed to department leaders by Lynn Cooley, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, as part of an effort to “evaluate the impact of recent executive orders and other federal directives” on Yale’s DEI programs. The survey and email did not specify plans to change these programs.

Department leaders were asked to respond to 15 questions and report detailed information about DEI practices that relate to faculty hiring and student programs, including any programs that “have the appearance of being limited” to particular identity groups.

One question asked for the names of all employees, departments and offices with the keywords “diversity,” “equity” or “inclusion” in their titles or who work in those areas. Another question asks for the names of all affinity groups and other groups organized by demography that receive University funding or are otherwise linked to Yale. A third question requests all official materials, especially statements on DEI or department values, “that should be reviewed or which may benefit from changes.”

A University spokesperson wrote to the News on behalf of Cooley and vice president for university life Kimberly Goff-Crews that the goal of the survey is “to understand how these activities support members of the Yale community and confirm that their description and implementation accurately reflect that these programs are accessible to the entire Yale community.” 

“The review is being done thoughtfully and carefully to both comply with the law and support the diverse and inclusive environment that is essential to fulfilling Yale’s mission,” the spokesperson wrote.

The survey, which requested an “immediate response” by March 28, raised alarm among faculty. 

Following a March 27 meeting between top administrators and over 100 faculty members, Goff-Crews agreed to extend the survey deadline and schedule further informational meetings with department leaders, according to an email sent by FAS-SEAS Senate chair Mark Solomon and deputy chair Marijeta Bozovic to faculty the next day.

“Because the survey came to the departments with no advance warning or preparation, many faculty were alarmed by the request and its legalistic tone,” Solomon wrote to the News, adding that he was not commenting on behalf of the Senate.

The Trump administration has issued several executive orders targeting DEI programs at various institutions, naming higher education as a particular target. A February 14 letter sent to educational institutions threatened to revoke federal funding if the schools continued their DEI policies, later walking back aspects of the letter. Universities across the country have been eliminating DEI offices, rolling back programs and scrubbing DEI pages from their websites.

“I find the confidentiality of the document and the nature of the questions to be very disturbing in that I am required to report on programs and colleagues without their knowledge,” Mimi Yiengpruksawan, Director of Graduate Studies for the Council on East Asian Studies, wrote to GSAS Dean Cooley in response to the survey. “I am also reluctant, after consultation with my own counsel, to be a signatory to information that might eventuate in my being deposed in litigation relating to misrepresentation of a program or individual employee.”

One section of the survey focuses on employment and asks for lists of all gender- and race-conscious practices in hiring and promotion processes for faculty and staff. The section lists as examples policies that require diversity in job candidate pools, hiring committees, promotion decisions and tenure processes. 

Other questions target programs such as diversity-related mentorships, training seminars, workshops, fellowships, internships, summer programs, mandatory courses, orientation programs and faculty or staff training.

A section about student policies requests an inventory of “any policies or programs that are intended to support diversity, equity, and inclusion in student life.” The section asks for descriptions of fellowships, internships, student jobs, support programs and educational or extracurricular programs that offer admission or preference on a demographic basis or are restricted to one demographic group.

One section labeled “vendor selection” asks for any diversity considerations used in the selection of “external vendors or service providers for the school or unit.”

In their March 28 email, Solomon and Bozovic explained that while the survey’s purpose and context were conveyed to deans across Yale’s schools, these details were “regrettably” not conveyed to department chairs and directors of graduate studies until the Senate meeting.

During the Senate meeting, administrators assured faculty that the survey intended to gather information, “rather than to prompt anticipatory obedience or to chill efforts to promote diversity in advance of any legal requirement to do so,” according to the email.

Goff-Crews also confirmed that brief answers stating only that a department has followed best practices set by the University in fall 2024 were sufficient, according to Solomon and Bozovic’s email.

Yiengpruksawan later wrote to the News that she is “somewhat alleviated” following these reassurances but said that administrators’ approach to the original survey presented “bad optics.”

“It tells us that we — departmental leadership and the faculty as a whole — were ‘last to know’ in a reactive situation in which the University appears to have been giving in to some form of political pressure through preemptive measures,” Yiengpruksawan wrote to the News. “I am not saying that such was the case. But it looked that way to me when I opened the survey.”

Department chairs will meet with Goff-Crews for further guidance on the survey on April 8.