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Photo provided by Latino News Network
DEI Crackdowns Leave Florida’s Hispanic‑Serving Institutions Fighting for Their Future
Apr 03, 2026
For many Latino students, going to a Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) is more than just going to college. For Beatriz Milian, a senior at Florida International University — the largest Hispanic-enrolling HSI in the country — it was a chance to connect directly with her culture while gaining access to programs.
“I wanted to be surrounded by people that looked like me, that came from the same background as me, had immigrant parents — the whole experience,” said Milian.
But following September 2025 cuts to Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) grant programs, including Hispanic-Serving, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian-Serving, and Predominantly Black Institutions, the futures of HSIs have become unclear.
Milian, who hails from Cuba and moved to the United States at five years old, shares that as these changes have taken shape, much of the conversation about how Hispanic students are getting access to opportunities has reverted to “you only got that because you’re Hispanic,” a common stereotype aimed towards Latinos across the country.
According to a study from Coqual, a global think tank that researches “identity, inclusion, leadership, and the future of work,” 23% of Hispanic/Latino professionals say colleagues express stereotypes about Hispanics or Latinos at least monthly.
South Florida is home to two of the largest HSIs in the country, FIU and Florida Atlantic University, both of which enroll upwards of 25% of their full-time Hispanic undergraduate students.
Attacks on DEI initiatives at South Florida HSIs:
But attacks on HSIs in Florida don’t exist on their own.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at public universities in Florida, including FIU and FAU, have faced significant challenges since 2023, following the introduction of state legislation such as HB 7, also known as the “Stop WOKE Act,” restricting gender and race education, and SB 266, which prohibits funding for DEI initiatives.
At FAU, the passage of these bills led to the closure of the school’s diversity center, or the Center for IDEAS. For Andrés Ramirez, associate professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, the center’s closure was one of the first steps the university took toward dismantling DEI programs, although he mentions that following the Covid-19 pandemic, these programs were already winding down.
“But then, it was really unfortunate that the interest was winding down right before Covid, I would say, and then after that, it was really difficult to continue with it in the same way. So we just continued doing this little by little,” said Ramirez.
Ramirez, who started at FAU in 2014, oversaw the creation of the HSI research interest group after FAU received a federal HSI designation in 2017.
He shares that the group was initially founded by him and María Vásquez, associate professor in educational leadership and research methodology, but did not receive federal funding, relying mostly on internal support for research projects rather than financial compensation.
Ramirez explains that what began to change for his projects following attacks on DEI in Florida, as well as for others within his interest group, was continued support for diversity, which he calls “diversity fatigue.”
“People like me who care a lot about diversity, it’s also taxing on us to actually do all the work to maintain that, and then after a while it was clear that the situation was not going to change,” said Ramirez.
A 2021 study conducted by Jessi Smith and Jennifer Poe, at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and Peter McPartlan at San Diego State University found that “the more a university’s faculty felt diversity fatigue, the less likely they were to want to implement it in the future.”
Stephanie Aguilar-Smith, assistant professor of higher education at the University of Georgia, studies MSIs and how federal funding impacts them.
Aguilar-Smith explains that cuts to state-wide funding for DEI initiatives, although not directly affecting HSIs’ federal funding, still affect the spirit of their end.
Aguilar-Smith finds that whereas specific legislation might call for the end of DEI trainings or programs, it doesn’t necessarily seep into research or coursework at a university; yet its existence might provoke fear among students and professors, leading them to continue pursuing topics related to DEI or specifically affecting the Latine community.
This is what she calls the “spirit of the law” versus the “letter of the law.”
“When there’s a lot of money on the table, and there’s these big political contests over what higher-ed should or shouldn’t be, right, those can create a lot of really uncomfortable decision points,” said Aguilar-Smith. “I think at times administrators were particularly in a public institution that’s really reliant on state dollars, there’s a real tension between the like, how far can you push right when you’re reliant and beholden to the state purse.”
At FIU, the closure of its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department led to the loss of over $1 million in state funds, according to reporting from the university’s student-run newspaper, Panther Now.
Milian only began to notice changes after the fact, recalling that the DEI chair for Phi Delta Epsilon at FIU was swiftly renamed the “inclusivity” chair. She wonders how this rhetorical framing changes the communities affected.
“So if we’re going around just trying to change language and to fit some sort of standard or quota, you’re hurting people at their roots, you know, if you have a school filled with Hispanic people and you’re saying you want to remove this label, what does that say?” said Milian.
How does federal legislation change the political landscape for HSIs?
On February 14, 2025, the United States Department of Education’s (DOE) Office for Civil Rights sent a memo to K-12 and postsecondary institutions across the country that receive federal funding, urging them to comply with Title VI rules following a 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which ended the use of Affirmative action at universities nationwide.
In June 2025, Students for Fair Admissions, the nonprofit group behind the Harvard lawsuit, and the State of Tennessee sued the DOE for the existence of Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and according to the press release regarding the lawsuit, for the belief that the program’s existence “engages in unconstitutional racial balancing and exceeds Congress’s constitutional authority.”
In July of that year, the U.S. Department of Justice notified U.S. Congress that it would not defend the existence of HSIs. By October, the DOE had eliminated more than $350 million in federal grants for MSI programs, including those that encompassed work by HSIs.
These cuts have left universities that were once largely funded by these grants — including those, like FIU and FAU, that were once designated as Fulbright HSI Leaders by the Fulbright program — gutted.
Many programs once funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation were also scrapped, including one at FIU, Advances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP). The program, which once offered alliances with higher education institutions to increase the representation of historically underrepresented communities in STEM faculty, has since been archived.
The Latino News Network reached out to Deidra Hodges, Michelle Bradham-Cousar, and Alla Mirzoyan, leaders of FIU’s alliance with the AGEP, for comment, but did not receive a comment in time for publication. One of the leaders, Hodges, wrote, “I do not have any comments to offer.”
In 2016, FAU received a $4.4 million Title III grant from the DOE for programs benefitting Hispanic and low-income students studying computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering. Programs, like this one, have been cut following the September 2025 decision.
What does the future look like for HSIs in Florida and around the U.S?
Ramirez isn’t sure what the future of DEI education or of the HSI designation holds, but still firmly believes that the damage to it cannot be undone.
“I feel that the damage is already done, that it doesn’t matter. They already dismantled a lot of the DEI initiatives anyway,” said Ramirez. “And here in our university, the DEI initiatives were dismantled. The director left. I mean, some other people that have to do with diversity and inclusion, of course, saw themselves under siege, and they couldn’t [stay].”
Although the program isn’t necessarily “dead,” it can be ended by Congress through legislation. Aguilar-Smith doesn’t believe that Congress will try to end it this way; instead, she foresees the DOE continuing to “starve” it.
“Congress can kill it, legislatively. The DOE can starve it. And so right now, by defunding it, that’s essentially what they’ve done,” said Aguilar-Smith.
Aguilar-Smith still hopes that communities within universities that are leading HSI programming and other DEI initiatives will continue to push forward. She believes that since the ideas for diversity and Hispanic programming were already created, they cannot be taken back.
“The idea already exists, and it is very hard to kill ideas. Regardless of whether the DOE refunds these programs or whether the funding is real, the idea of an HSI, though it is contested, exists,” said Aguilar-Smith.
For Milian, pushing towards a more diverse community is still possible. She shares her experiences starting the Latino Medical Students Association (LMSA at FIU), where she has helped build community.
“It is one thing to have a community that has the same background, but it’s another to have the same background and have people who are working towards the same goal as you and supporting each other,” she said. “We had to seek and really go and find [resources] in like the cracks and crevices, but now [members] are just in a Club that provides that to them and makes it more accessible.”
Additionally, organizations such as the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU) and the Puerto Rican Legal Defence and Education Fund (LatinoJustice PRLDEF) are at the forefront of the fight against the June SFFA lawsuit.
Early in 2025, three Florida university professors announced they would challenge SB 266 in the State Legislature through a lawsuit funded by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Florida. The professors, although unsuccessful in reversing the legislation, still made waves in national news.
“The one hope I have is that, kind of regardless of the politics, the idea is already really real and [for] places committed to it, that will be true with or without funding,” said Aguilar-Smith.
Gabriela Quintero is a High School senior at Florida Atlantic University High School and will be attending Barnard College at Columbia University in the fall to pursue her B.A. in Political Science and English. Interested in politics, migration, policy, and culture, she hopes to pursue a career in political and cultural journalism.
DEI Crackdowns Leave Florida’s Hispanic‑Serving Institutions Fighting for Their Future was first published on Latino News Network and was republished with permission.
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As U.S. market dominance fades, capital is shifting toward emerging economies in Asia and Latin America.
Getty Images, Priscila Zambotto
Capital Shifts Toward Tangible Assets and Emerging Economies
Apr 02, 2026
The global economy is experiencing a fundamental reallocation of capital. For more than a decade, the story of world markets centered on American technology companies and the strength of the dollar. In 2026, that dominance is fading. Investors are directing funds toward Asia and Latin America, where growth prospects appear more robust and risks more contained.
Market data this year makes the pattern clear. The S&P 500 has posted small losses year to date, while the Nasdaq has struggled. By contrast, emerging-market indices have gained ground. Asian equities have outperformed, and Brazil’s B3 index has risen sharply. An FT report in January noted emerging-market stocks, bonds, and currencies enjoying a strong start precisely as the dollar weakened.
This divergence is not cyclical. It rests on three structural forces: faster growth in the developing world, a cooler assessment of artificial intelligence in the United States, and worries about fiscal sustainability in the West. The International Monetary Fund's latest outlook projects global growth at 3.3 percent in 2026. Advanced economies are expected to expand by roughly 1.5 to 2 percent; emerging and developing economies by just above 4 percent. That gap of more than double has persisted for years but is now shaping investment decisions. Growth in emerging markets is also more evenly spread across sectors - industrials, financial services, and consumer industries - rather than concentrated in a narrow group of technology firms.
The reassessment of artificial intelligence is equally important. In the United States, the early optimism about generative tools has yielded to concern over their impact on profit margins in law, insurance, and software, as well as on employment. February’s non-farm payrolls fell by 92,000, an unexpected decline that has sharpened fears of faster labor-market disruption than societies can absorb. Recent Goldman Sachs studies highlight the risk that AI could displace tasks accounting for a significant share of work hours within a decade.
Investors have therefore shifted attention from software applications to the physical inputs of the AI economy. Semiconductor production, power infrastructure, and related hardware are concentrated in Asia, where suppliers enjoy pricing leverage. The rotation is from the creators of algorithms to the providers of the tangible components that make them run.
The dollar’s retreat adds momentum. The currency has fallen to levels not seen in four years. Persistent U.S. budget deficits and repeated political deadlocks over long-term fiscal repair have eroded confidence. The Federal Reserve’s policy rate remains around 3.75 percent, leaving real yields in many emerging markets comparatively attractive and pulling capital into local-currency debt and equities. Parallel changes in financial infrastructure are reducing reliance on traditional dollar channels. Project mBridge, the platform linking central banks in Hong Kong, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, has now settled more than $55 billion in cross-border transactions - a 2,500-fold increase since its early trials. This is not ideological de-dollarization; it is a practical search for efficiency. Central banks have responded by increasing gold holdings. The metal has traded above $5,000 an ounce this year, with purchases led by China and other emerging-market authorities.
Two broad scenarios suggest themselves. In a smoother transition, U.S. markets stabilize once AI delivers measurable productivity gains and emerging economies continue their catch-up. In a rougher version, unresolved fiscal pressures in the West generate volatility that accelerates the move of capital toward jurisdictions with clearer policy frameworks. To navigate this transition, three concrete policy shifts are required.
First, the international community must move beyond viewing platforms like mBridge as "alternative" systems and instead integrate them into a global regulatory framework. By establishing unified anti-money laundering protocols for multi-CBDC platforms, we can prevent a fragmented shadow finance market. A standardized digital code of conduct would allow these efficient systems to coexist with the SWIFT network, ensuring that speed does not come at the cost of transparency.
Second, emerging economies must resist the urge to use new capital inflows for short-term consumption. Instead, governments in Southeast Asia and Latin America should establish Sovereign Infrastructure Trusts. These funds would channel speculative private credit into the "tangible AI" sector - specifically, high-capacity power grids and specialized logistics hubs. By anchoring foreign capital in physical, revenue-generating assets, these nations can create a buffer against the eventual return of Western interest rate volatility.
Third, as AI displaces labor in the West, developed economies must implement Transition Credits for corporations that reinvest AI-driven profits into human-in-the-loop reskilling. Simultaneously, emerging markets - possessing younger demographics - should prioritize STEM-based digital service export zones. This would allow a global labor equilibrium, where Western AI efficiency is balanced by the cognitive labor surplus of the Global South.
Developed economies face an obvious priority: restoring fiscal order. Reducing long-term debt burdens and overcoming legislative gridlock would remove the political-risk premium now attached to Western assets. Without credible plans for sustainability, investor caution will persist. Emerging markets, for their part, must channel the new inflows into productive uses rather than speculative excess. Stronger regulatory oversight and greater transparency in private markets matter. Private credit to emerging economies reached a record $22.3 billion last year, nearly 40 percent above the previous peak, according to the Global Private Capital Association. India and Latin America accounted for much of the total. Maintaining standards in these markets will sustain confidence.
The unipolar financial order that prevailed for decades is giving way to a more dispersed system. Growth is becoming more widely distributed, and capital is becoming more mobile. This is not a narrative of decline for the West but of rebalancing for the world. The opportunities worth pursuing now span more regions and more sectors than before. Investors and policymakers who recognize the shift early will be better placed to navigate the years ahead.
Imran Khalid is a physician, geostrategic analyst, and freelance writer.
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Protesters hold a "No Kings" flag as they gather in Southeast Area and take part in rally and march on March 28, 2026 in Washington, DC. This is the third nationwide "No Kings" protest held against the Trump administration.
Getty Images, Tasos Katopodis
Voices of Protesters: Rejecting The King
Apr 02, 2026
In the 1980s, I was an American diplomat assigned to the U.S. Consulate in Casablanca, Morocco. At that time, King Hassan II was coordinating a “voluntary” campaign to fund the building of the Hassan II Mosque on the Mediterranean coast. The monarch wanted to build the largest mosque in Africa. In 1986, work began on it. Although the King told Moroccans he could pay for it himself (along with his government), he said it would be selfish if he did so. In an address to the nation, he told Moroccans that he wanted them to participate with him in the construction of this magnificent edifice. He told them that no one would be forced to contribute money and that the program would be purely voluntary. He said it would unite the country in this tremendous endeavor to make a beautiful Islamic monument that would be the envy of every nation. And so began a massive campaign to collect “contributions” from businesses, schools, and just average Moroccan subjects of the king.
It took seven years, and in 1993, the Hassan II Mosque was inaugurated in Casablanca. For a time, it was the largest mosque in Africa. But a few years ago, Algeria opened the Great Mosque of Algiers, which is now the largest on the continent, spanning nearly 70 acres. Today, Moroccans take pride in the Hassan II Mosque on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. But few Moroccans think back fondly to how they were pressured to pay for it. Many families never recovered from the brutal tactics employed by Moroccan police to exact contributions.
I reported to Washington on the scattered protests among working Moroccans against the demands that they pay for the mosque. Police showed up at houses and demanded money. If someone couldn’t pay, they were often taken away. Through strong-arm police tactics, the King was able to squelch the protest movement, and many of the protesters disappeared and were never seen alive again. But those protesters had a message for the omnipotent king: he might hold the power, but they were willing to risk their lives to protest his unreasonable demands.
In our country, I have participated in every No Kings protest. I cannot be quiet in the midst of the outrageous acts of this administration. Some people say that since Trump evidently does not alter his behavior because more than eight million Americans gather at No Kings protests, it’s pointless to raise our voices. Whether Trump adjusts anything is not the point. We protest because we object to what is being done to our country. We protest because this country was built by immigrants. We protest because we believe in ethics and morals, while the Trump administration seems intent on treating people cruelly and feathering their own nests. We protest because we believe in the sovereignty of other nations, while Trump attacks Venezuela (kidnapping its leader) and launches an absurd war with Iran. More than an estimated 2,000 people protested together in downtown Fort Lauderdale on March 28th. More than 3,500 protested at Fort Lauderdale beach.
Photo courtesy of Michael Varga.
We are at a dangerous inflection point in this country. Trump believes he has unlimited power. He acts like a king, and GOP politicians continue to place loyalty to Trump and the Republican Party over doing what is in the national interest. Every American knows that it is a recipe for disaster, and we’re living it.
Trump may never adjust his behavior in the Oval Office because of protesters' voices. But despite what he claims, everyone I have met at a No Kings protest was there voluntarily. No one was paying us to protest. We are grandfathers and realtors and teachers and librarians and government workers and plumbers and fast-food workers and every color of the American mosaic. Don’t let anyone tell you that protesting accomplishes nothing. We owe it to Renée Good and to Alex Pretti (and the unknown others who have been abused by ICE) to sound the alarm. Our country is one that began with rejecting an English king. Today, we must reject our wannabe American king.
Michael Varga, the author of Under Chad's Spell, was a Foreign Service officer, serving in Dubai, Damascus, Casablanca, and Toronto. See more at www.michaelvarga.comKeep ReadingShow less
U.S. President Donald Trump answers questions from members of the press as he departs the White House January 13, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
This Is What a Victory for Democracy Looks Like
Apr 02, 2026
On Friday, March 20, Paul L. Friedman of the Federal District Court in Washington delivered a decisive defense of democracy in a case involving the Trump Administration’s assault on press freedom. He ruled that the Pentagon’s policy of issuing press passes only to reporters who pledged not to publish stories unless they were approved by the Trump administration was a blatant violation of the First Amendment.
Friedman provided a rousing defense of press freedom and its role in American democracy. And he offered a model of how judges and citizens can stand up for democracy at a time when it is under attack in this country.
Friedman pulled no punches but stuck to the facts, was precise in his analysis, and was attentive to the history that has shaped the First Amendment. His opinion was, in its form as well as its substance, a refutation of the Trump Administration’s practices of deception, bluster, and utter disregard for that history.
Whatever happens to Friedman’s decision when it is reviewed by higher courts, he has done us all a service by making a record of one aspect of the federal government’s sustained assault on the American Constitution. The judge used his opinion to memorialize this moment and to conjure a fundamentally different, better reality in which political leaders respect and protect constitutional norms.
Friedman wasted no time in doing that work.
His forty-page opinion begins: “(T)he primary purpose of the 1st amendment is to enable the press to publish what it will and the public to read what it chooses, free of any official proscription. Those who drafted the First Amendment believed that the nation's security requires a Free Press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by the governmental suppression of political speech.”
“That principle,” he added, “has preserved the nation's security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”
Though he did not cite it, his words echoed a defense of press freedom and an exposition of its essential role in a democracy, written fifty-five years ago by Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. “Both the history and language of the First Amendment,” Black said, “support the view that the press must be left free to publish news, whatever the source, without censorship, injunctions, or prior restraints.”
“In the First Amendment,” he observed, “the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people.”
From the moment President Trump came on the political scene, he has offered a very different view of the press. He has called them the “enemy of the American people.”
In his first term in the Oval Office, We Verify estimates that Trump “used the expression ‘fake news’ 840 times.” Since then, he has accused news media of spreading “fake news” thousands of times.
His favorite targets are CNN (he regularly calls it "Fake News CNN"), The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News / MSNBC, and ABC News. He repeatedly denigrates individual reporters who publish unflattering accounts of him or his administration.
He has popularized the term “fake news” to undermine public confidence in the mainstream press and discredit any reporting he dislikes.
As the journalist Marvin Kalb explained in 2018, “(L)anguage like this ventured into dangerous territory. Twentieth-century dictators—notably, Stalin, Hitler, and Mao—had all denounced their critics, especially the press, as ‘enemies of the people.’ Their goal was to delegitimize the work of the press as ‘fake news’ and create confusion in the public mind about what’s real and what isn’t; what can be trusted and what can’t be. That, it seems, is also Trump’s goal.”
Not long after he returned to power, the president showed his hand when he banned The Associated Press from the White House press pool for refusing to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by his preferred name, The Gulf of America. His colleagues in the administration have joined in trashing the press.
One of the most ardent of those people has been Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, whose press policy Judge Friedman struck down. For example, on March 13, Hegseth criticized reporters for their coverage of the war in Iran.
Following the president’s lead, he directed his ire at CNN. “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network,” Hegseth said, “the better.” As The Guardian notes, “Ellison, a Trump ally, is the frontrunner to acquire CNN’s parent company, Warner Bros Discovery, and has reportedly told Trump administration officials he would make sweeping changes to the network should the deal close.”
Last fall, Hegseth took the usual step of laying out a series of conditions to which reporters seeking press passes to cover the Pentagon had to agree, among them “requiring them to sign a pledge to only report information officially authorized for release, even if unclassified.“ Almost all major news outlets refused to do so and, in December, 2025, the New York Times filed suit.
Hegseth’s department was hardly subtle about what it was trying to achieve. As Judge Friedman notes, Pentagon Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson called the journalists and news organizations who refused to sign the pledge, “’propagandists who ‘stopped telling the truth' and ‘continue to lie.’” He explained that the purpose of the new regulations was to ensure that members of the press who cover the Pentagon are ”’ on board and willing to serve our commander in chief.’”
The press corps that the Pentagon wanted, the judge continues, consisted of “’individuals and outlets who had expressed ideological agreement with and support for the Trump administration in the past.’”
Judge Friedman said that what the Pentagon was doing was “’ An egregious form of content discrimination ‘in which ‘the government targets not subject matter, but particular views taken by speakers on a subject.’” He characterized Hegseth’s “true purpose” and his policy’s “practical effect” as being “To weed out disfavored journalist those who were not, in the department's view, ‘on board and willing to serve’-and replace them with news outlets that are.”
Friedman labeled the Pentagon policy “viewpoint discrimination, full stop.” At the same time, he did not call anyone names, exaggerate, or denigrate those whose actions and policies he criticized.
In the end, the judge was clear in linking the health of democracy with the fate of a free press. As he put it, “in light of the country's recent incursion into Venezuela and its ongoing war with Iran, it is more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing so that the public can support government policies, if it wants to support them, protest if it wants to protest and decide based on full, complete, and open information who they're going to vote for in the next election.”
Justice Black would be proud, as would George Washington, who complained about “The complexion of some of our newspapers….(whose coverage suggested) That inveterate political dissensions existed among us and that we are on the verge of disunion.” But he reminded Americans that any “evil” done by newspapers must be placed in opposition to the infinite benefits resulting from a Free Press.”
It is for all of us to remember Washington's words and to join Judge Friedman in defending press freedom so that we can fulfill our roles as democratic citizens.
Austin Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College.
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