As the nation’s colleges and universities respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s “race-neutral” admissions mandates and the Trump administration’s efforts to cut funding to campuses with DEI programs, a UC Riverside education professor has offered a framework for institutions to defend racial equity and student well-being.
Rather than eliminating race-conscious strategies, Uma Mazyck Jayakumar, an associate professor in UCR’s School of Education, urges institutions to respond to racial inequalities by working to improve their “racial climate health”—a concept she developed that draws from the medical and public health fields.
This can be done in ways that are legally compliant, morally grounded, and structurally informed at time a when DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs are under attack, she said.
The framework is detailed in her paper, “Transforming Racial Climate Health on Campus: The Need for Structural Competency in a Legal Context of ‘Race-Neutrality” recently published in the journal Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.
Jayakumar’s “racial climate health” concept acknowledges that racial injustices harm the minds, bodies, and futures of students of color—effectively creating a public health crisis, she said. Students of color often suffer from the cumulative emotional, mental, and physiological toll of navigating inequitable environments in which they are devalued or rendered invisible.
Jayakumar’s framework builds on the view that racism on campuses is chronic—not episodic. To address this, universities must recognize their own “structural vulnerabilities” that perpetuate racism, understand who is most exposed to harm, and identify whom they are failing to protect.
Instead of capitulating to outside political pressure, higher education institutions can:
- Build racial literacy and understanding among faculty and leadership;
- Assess and address structural vulnerabilities that perpetuate racism;
- Support truth-telling by student activists as essential to transformation;
- Realign institutional values and missions to improve racial climate health, even within constrained legal environments.
Jayakumar’s call comes in response to the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to strike down race-conscious admissions and a national backlash against DEI programs—intensified by the Trump administration’s efforts to halt federal research funding to campuses with such programs.
Rather than retreating, Jayakumar urges universities to deepen their commitments to racial justice—not through superficial campus climate surveys, but by acknowledging structural racism and recognizing the health consequences of institutional denial.
Jayakumar describes the “race neutrality” in college admissions championed by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority as “a fantasy” that reinforces privileged access to higher education for affluent white students at the expense of marginalized groups. She adds that today’s attacks on DEI efforts are meant to intimidate colleges into submission.
She warns that many universities, fearing legal repercussions or public backlash, have grown silent on racial issues or resorted to symbolic gestures, such as conducting campus climate surveys. But when universities deny or downplay the existence of racism by staying silent or avoiding hard truths they perpetuate the problem, she said.
“Denial doesn’t protect students,” Jayakumar writes in the article. “It protects institutions.” In today’s legal and political climate, she adds, denial is not neutral—it is an active form of institutional harm.
Jayakumar’s recommendations draw from her role as an expert witness in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina, a case consolidated with the Harvard University case in the Supreme Court’s 2023 landmark 6-3 ruling against race-conscious admissions. In that case, Jayakumar worked on behalf of student intervenors—Black and Latino students who challenged UNC’s narrative of progress and argued that the campus climate remained hostile to students of color.
Her findings showed that while UNC highlighted positive trends in cross-racial engagement and student belonging, its campus climate data obscured the ongoing effects of segregationist legacies, racial tokenism, and microaggressions in campus life. These harms, she contends, are part of the “structure and culture” of racism that persists in higher education.
Jayakumar has also collaborated with scholars such as María Ledesma at the Universidad Maimónides in Argentina and UCR education professor Rita Kohli to center the voices of students most impacted by structural racism. Her article builds directly on this legal advocacy and student activism—responding to calls for justice, not just policy compliance.
Jayakumar asserts that diversity work is being criminalized and redefined by right-wing ideologues intent on dismantling it.
“Transforming racial climate health is a timely intervention,” she said. “It challenges institutions not just to survive the backlash, but to deepen their commitments to justice, healing, and educational integrity.”
