Johnson County Community College has disbanded a two-year-old office dedicated to campus diversity and inclusion efforts, citing the Trump administration’s order to end such programs or lose federal funding.
The college’s Office of Inclusion and Belonging was closed on Friday, according to a letter from Interim President Judy Korb to staff, the same day as a deadline set for the end of diversity, equity and inclusion programs laid out in a letter from the U.S. Department of Education.
The federal directive sent 14 days earlier threatened schools and universities with a loss of federal funding if DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programs continued beyond that date.
Other local educational institutions, including K-12 public school districts in Johnson County and the University of Kansas in Lawrence, have nearly uniformly said they are assessing their next steps even as the deadline came and went Friday.
JCCC appears to be the first local institution to take action on its own in response to the federal DEI directive.
JCCC’s announcement went out Friday to staff
JCCC quietly announced the closure of the office via a letter to staff from Interim President Korb, a copy of which the Post has obtained.
Korb said that despite lingering uncertainty over the DEI order, the college would make sure its admissions, hiring, resource allocations and scholarships are in compliance.
“Failure to comply could risk federal financial aid funding for our students and this is not an option,” she wrote.
Korb told JCCC staff members that the decision was not made lightly.
“JCCC will comply with the law while maintaining an environment where all students, faculty and staff are welcome, respected and supported,” Korb wrote. “We will focus on those actions that create a positive environment rather than on labels or words that could be misconstrued.”
Chris Gray, JCCC’s Vice President of Strategic Communications and Marketing, said in an emailed response to questions to the Post that the decision to close the office was made with the support of the board of trustees “as a whole.”
Gray also said no jobs were cut as a result of the choice to shutter the Office of Inclusion & Belonging.
JCCC’s inclusion director started in 2023
The idea of an inclusion and belonging office attracted attention from a county conservative group in 2022, when the trustees first proposed setting aside $400,000 in the budget for it.
At the time, sentiment was mixed on whether the office should be created, but the board approved that allocation and in autumn of 2023, Marquis Harris became the first director of the new office.
He was in his role at JCCC from July 2023 to September 2024, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Gray, the college spokesperson, confirmed Harris left JCCC in September and that the position had been left unfilled since his departure.
The office’s purpose, according to a sponsored column from JCCC written by Harris and published by the Post in November 2023, was to “maximize inclusion and belonging efforts on campus by using evidence-backed and research-backed services” through guidance, professional development sessions and events.
‘We simply can’t put our students’ financial aid at risk’
In a Facebook post on Saturday, JCCC Board of Trustees Vice Chair Laura Smith-Everett gave more insight into the decision to disband the office.
She emphasized the importance of encouraging diversity — which she said is “a belief in our greater good” — while also underlying the threat to JCCC’s students that a loss of federal funds could pose.
“One of the hardest parts of being elected to public office is that you can’t say all the things you think,” she said, adding that the decision was based on what will be best for the college and its students. “We simply can’t put our students’ financial aid at risk,” she wrote.
Neither Smith-Everett’s post nor Korb’s letter explained if the board of trustees formally voted on disbanding the office.
“This federal administration is trying to dismantle our work through threats and intimidation. Weaponizing this terminology does not take away its importance and value,” Smith-Everett wrote.
What did the federal directive say?
The letter from the federal education department outlined a broad interpretation of a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision against the use of racial preferences in college admissions.
The letter threatening fund loss added hiring, financial aid, scholarships, prizes and administrative support, among other things, as examples of actions that would be unlawful if based on race or gender.
However, it did not specifically outline what programs should end, saying only that educational institutions should ensure their actions “comply with existing civil rights laws.”
On Thursday, Feb. 27, one day before the deadline for ending DEI programs, the U.S. Department of Education launched a portal for reporting schools for suspected DEI activity.
Editor Kyle Palmer contributed to this report.
