In the flurry of execcutive orders by the monster child, I missed this one; as CHE explains:

Decades of higher-ed hiring and employment practices aimed at avoiding discrimination could be upended after President Trump late Tuesday rescinded the Equal Employment Opportunity order signed in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

The order applies to federal contractors and likely includes the majority of colleges that receive federal financial aid or other federal funding….

The president’s action also takes aim at private colleges with DEI commitments. It orders all federal agencies to identify “the most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners” in their jurisdiction, including higher-education institutions with endowments of $1 billion or more. Each agency is ordered to identify nine potential cases that could be targets of civil-compliance investigations. The goal, the order states, was to “encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”

The now-revoked 1965 measure signed by LBJ had required federal contractors to “formulate affirmative action plans, develop plans to identify job groups where there are underrepresented groups, and come up with plans to address that underrepresentation in ways that are consistent with Title VII,” the federal law banning race, sex, and other forms of discrimination, said Scott Schneider, a prominent employment lawyer who advises colleges on discrimination and other matters.

“My two big takeaways are that all of the affirmative-action planning and report work being done on college campuses likely needs to stop under this executive order,” Schneider said. “Not only do colleges no longer have an obligation to pursue affirmative-action plans, I think this would prohibit it.”

An exception, he said, is likely to be colleges’ legal obligations toward disabled people and veterans.

(Related, earlier discussion here.)