As Maine faces a potentially substantial loss of federal education funding for refusing to comply with one of President Donald Trump’s executive orders, the University of Maine has quietly changed the name of its Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI) in an attempt to avoid a funding loss.
On January 20, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at halting federally-funded Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs.
“My words to people are ‘Try not focusing so much on the words, and focus on the work.’ That is not changing,” said UMaine Interim Dean of Students Andrea Gifford addressing students.
The taxpayer-funded school rebranded its ODI to the new “Office of Community and Culture” (OCC) on March 5, in response to President Trump’s executive orders calling for an end to discriminatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies in schools, according to the student newspaper Maine Campus.
According to an email sent by the school’s Student Life, and reviewed by the student paper, the OCC is presented as though it is an entirely new initiative rather than simply a name change of the ODI.
“The Division of Student Life is pleased to announce the launch of the Office of Community and Connections (OCC), a new initiative designed to broaden and integrate essential resources for members of the UMaine and UMaine Machias communities,” said the student life email.
Despite that suggestion, the OCC appears to remain largely the same as its previous incarnation, maintaining the Rainbow Resource Center, the Intersectional Feminist Resource Center, and the Multicultural Student Center.
In addition to maintaining the same resource centers, the “new” office largely has the same staff as the ODI and is headed by the same woman, Anila Karunakar.
The primary difference between the old and new versions of the office appears to be a slight change in phrasing, moving away from language that references specific groups in a way that could be seen as discrimination posing as “equity.”
The old description of the multicultural community center claimed that it would provide “a community that embraces diverse backgrounds and appreciates the intersection of multiple cultural identities.”
That language has been replaced with the very similar claim that it will provide “a community that embraces all backgrounds and appreciates all identities,” in an apparent attempt to make it appear that the center is not discriminating on the basis of race, gender, or sexual orientation.
The Rainbow Resource Center underwent a similar transformation.
The old version reads: “The Rainbow Resource Center (RRC) empowers and increases the visibility of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) people by promoting equality and inclusiveness at the University of Maine. The RRC strives to maintain an open, safe, and supportive environment for all students, staff, faculty, and alumni and provide educational opportunities, information, and advocacy services.”
The updated OCC says: “The Rainbow Resource Center (RRC) strives to maintain an open, affirming, and supportive environment for students, staff, faculty, and alumni and provide educational opportunities, information, and advocacy services.”
Nothing on the new page indicates that there will be any substantial change in how the office operates or how it conducts its activities. The updated site did, however, remove its link to a page for reporting bias incidents.
Providing more evidence that the change is just a token shift to avoid drawing attention from the Trump Administration, Interim Dean of Students Andrea Gifford essentially admitted that there will be no substantial change during a March 6 address explaining the change to students, as reported by the Maine Campus.
She admitted that the office has only changed its wording, and that its day-to-day operations, along with its overall purpose and mission, remain the same.
“The three lounge areas that we have that are student lounges in the Union, their names have not changed, their purpose has not changed. The office, and the staff and the students that are dedicated to working there, their day-to-day work has not changed,” said Gifford.
She claimed that the school had been considering changes to its diversity office even before Trump won the election but admitted that his orders influenced the decision.
It remains to be seen whether UMaine’s gambit will deflect the scrutiny of the Trump Administration. The Maine Department of Education and the Maine Principals’ Association have already been found to be in violation of Title IX anti-discrimination rules.
The administration appears intent on continuing its efforts until it can root out Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices across Maine, leaving a very real possibility that UMaine’s recently renamed OCC could prompt its own investigation.
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