Oregon – The Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC) is established in Oregon statute and is directed to “be guided by the legislative findings in ORS 341.009, 350.001 and 350.005 and the goals and mission of post-secondary education set forth in ORS 350.009 and 350.014.” The HECC is the organization responsible for determining state goals for post-secondary education, determining strategic investments, increasing educational attainment, and fulfilling the other duties defined by the legislature, including adopting a strategic plan for achieving post-secondary education goals.
Following the direction given in Oregon statute the HECC should be focused on a plan that develops an educated citizenry, ensuring access to high-quality post-secondary education, developing original knowledge and advancing innovation, and contributing positively to economic, civic, and cultural life across all regions of the state.
350.009 Fundamental goals of public higher education. The Legislative Assembly finds that public higher education is necessary to accomplish the findings in ORS 350.001 and recognizes the following as fundamental goals of public higher education in this state:
(1) Creating an educated citizenry to support responsible roles in a democratic society and provide a globally competitive workforce to drive this state’s economy, while ensuring access for all qualified Oregonians to a high-quality post-secondary education;
(2) Ensuring a high-quality learning environment that allows students to succeed;
(3) Creating original knowledge and advancing innovation; and
(4) Contributing positively to the economic, civic and cultural life of communities in all regions of Oregon.
Reviewing the HECC’s strategic plan quickly reveals that one of the main focuses is equity, as is stated on the website “Our strategic planning is anchored by our application of the Equity Lens, and is aimed at advancing Oregon toward state educational attainment goals. We apply the plan to guide development and implementation of funding and policy proposals that impact Oregonians statewide. ” Further detail is listed in the plan itself with equity being listed as a top value in the document “[w]e believe that equity is crucial in ensuring equal opportunities for all individuals. When our work is rooted in equity, we share power and leadership, engage our communities, and analyze data to remove barriers and create access and pathways to growth.”
The Equity Lens defines equity as “[e]quity acknowledges that not all people, or all communities, are starting from the same place due to historic and current systems of oppression. Equity is the effort to provide different levels of support based on an individual’s or group’s needs in order to achieve fairness in outcomes. Equity actionably empowers communities most impacted by systemic oppression and requires the redistribution of resources, power, and opportunity to those communities.” This definition clearly calls for providing differential treatment, “different levels of support”, on the basis of “group needs” with the goal of achieving a particular outcome. As the HECC states earlier in the document that “we must formulate new governmental and educational policies, practices, and approaches to eliminate racial and other inequities” it seems clear that the goal is to apply equity in a racial context to achieve particular outcomes among racial groups.
The continuing focus on equity raises questions about the HECC’s alignment with Oregon statutes as well as whether this will place Oregon further at odds with the federal government. The Trump administration issued an executive order requiring the Secretary of Education, and others, to within 90 days of the order “provide an Ending Indoctrination Strategy to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy”. The order requires the plan to address federal funds that “directly or indirectly support or subsidize the instruction, advancement, or promotion of gender ideology or discriminatory equity ideology”, along with other measures aimed at rolling back equity doctrine.
The Department of Education later issued a Dear Colleague letter stating “[t]he Department will no longer tolerate the overt and covert racial discrimination that has become widespread in this Nation’s educational institutions. The law is clear: treating students differently on the basis of race to achieve nebulous goals such as diversity, racial balancing, social justice, or equity is illegal under controlling Supreme Court precedent.” This initiative focused on ending racially discriminatory practices has included the Office of Civil Rights initiating investigations into higher education institutions, which includes the University of Oregon.
In a statement to OPB the University of Oregon (UO) said “We have recently reviewed all of our practices and believe that the University of Oregon is in compliance with the law. We have continued to review policies and practices in light of the Administration’s Executive Orders and look forward to working with the Office for Civil Rights to resolve this complaint.” UO has a large amount of institutional and financial resources dedicated to DEI. A brief from the Oregon Association of Scholars showed UO spending around $4.2 million in one year on salary and benefits for DEI staff, almost as much as Oregon State and Portland State combined.
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield issued a release in early March following the executive orders and Dear Colleague letter.
Attorney General Rayfield joined a coalition of 15 attorneys general in issuing guidance » to help K-12 schools, colleges and universities understand the legality, viability and importance of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies and practices in education.
The guidance comes in response to concerns following a Trump administration executive order and the U.S. Department of Education’s “Dear Colleague” letter and FAQ document targeting diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility policies and programming in schools. The coalition’s guidance reminds educational entities that efforts to seek and support diverse, equitable, inclusive and accessible educational experiences for students are legal, and that longstanding legal precedents supporting these programs cannot be changed by an executive order or a letter from the Department of Education.
“Making sure diversity, equity, and inclusion are protected in education is about giving every student a fair chance to succeed,” Rayfield said. “When efforts are made to roll back DEIA programs, it’s not just about policy – it’s about denying students the support they need to thrive.”
President Trump’s executive orders to end support for DEI programs were briefly blocked by court orders but an appeals court lifted the block while the lawsuits work their way through the legal process.
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