Walking through campus, Caleb Lys often feels underrepresented.

“It can feel a little bit intimidating, almost, when you’re walking around and you’re seeing a whole lot of faces and nobody that looks like you or nobody that can share the same experiences,” said Lys, a second-year computer science and business administration combined major. 

As diversity programs across higher education institutions in the U.S. come under threat, Black university students say there is an increasing need for strong community, connection and support. 

Since his return to the Oval Office Jan. 20, Trump has made a number of moves targeting racial diversity initiatives in higher education, including diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, and race-related scholarships and programs. Northeastern has since rebranded its DEI office, removed all DEI-related language from its website and transformed race-based university programs such as Summer Bridge. 

As a result of these administrative actions, Black Northeastern students report feeling isolated and frustrated with the university’s response.

“If I walk into a class and I’m the only Black person there, you instinctively feel a lack of something, lack of community, a lack of representation, lack of identity. You feel a lack of something when you’re the only person in the room who looks like you,” said Chigozirim Ike, a third-year data science and business administration combined major and vice president of Northeastern’s Black Business Student Association, or BBSA. 

But the threats to diversity in higher education aren’t new; in June 2023, the Supreme Court overruled affirmative action, a set of race-based policies and procedures intended to even the playing field in college admissions. Affirmative action was first introduced in 1961 and diversified universities across the United States for over 40 years. 

Following the ruling, Northeastern saw a 35% drop in Black student enrollment for the Class of 2028. The decrease was both an expected and observed trend across universities nationwide. 

Hannah Abubakari, a first-year public health and law major, reflected on her college application process after affirmative action was outlawed.  

“It was definitely a big fear because I was told … I would only get into a good school because I’m Black, and [my peers] completely disqualified any of my education, my experiences that I’ve had that have made me more than qualified,” she said.

Lys, who is a Student Government Association, or SGA, senator and campus liaison for the Northeastern Black Student Association, or NBSA, explained that the dwindling number of Black students on campus feel pressure to hold themselves to higher standards than their peers. 

“We have to go harder as Black students that are still here, really show them, ‘Okay, we can do it.’ It’s worth admitting us, it’s worth us being here,” Lys said. 

On Jan. 21, Trump issued an executive order demanding federal agencies and education institutions across the nation dismantle DEI programs or face funding cuts.  Three days later, Northeastern scrubbed all DEI-related language on its website and renamed its Office of DEI to the “Office of Belonging.” 

“Our DEI office has already been renamed to [Office of Belonging], and that’s one of those changes that’s very minor but … can be very scary for Black students,” Lys said. 

Beyond admissions, Black students are also facing decreasing support once they actually step onto campus. In response to a February U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights memo, which demanded that educational institutions receiving federal funding remove race-related programs, Northeastern merged its Summer Bridge Program, a pre-orientation geared toward supporting first-years from marginalized communities, into the NU PLACE Fellows Program. The move, which replaced the week-long program with a weekend of networking and identity development events following move-in, has prompted backlash from Black student organizations, or BSOs. 

“[The Summer Bridge Program] was a program geared more towards marginalized communities in Northeastern’s student body … I was just able to meet a lot of people that look like me … and I was able to make a lot of friends,” said Jamila Smith, a third-year business administration major and president of BBSA, who was part of the program her first year. “It was really a cushion.”

Despite the challenges, students said the changes have encouraged them to create their own communities for support instead of relying on the university to provide them. 

“As the political climate got worse, we definitely started to meet a lot more, we definitely started to have these disheartening conversations a lot more, we definitely started to think about issues that were bigger than just us, and I would say that has brought us closer together,” Ike said. 

Abubakari feels that Northeastern could be doing more to support BSOs and Black students. 

“I feel like Northeastern is just choosing to be silent about [the administrative changes and race-based attacks on universities], which is in its own way omission and being complicit,” Abubakari said. Students are only updated on the university’s responses to federal policies through an unsigned FAQ page. 

Lys said, however, that Northeastern is relatively powerless compared to the greater political pressures it is facing. 

“At the end of the day, it’s one club versus the United States government, and I understand there’s not much that they can do about that,” Lys said. 

As an institution focused on “developing global citizens,” Smith said there are high expectations about how Northeastern should be approaching issues relating to diversity and equity.

“Northeastern being so innovative, so bold in so many other ways … you’d kind of expect them to take a more concrete, more bold stance in the other direction,” Smith said.