Virginia Tech Board of Visitors vote to dissolve Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Office
BLACKSBURG, Va. (WFXR) – President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February, demanding that the public and private sectors eliminate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (D.E.I.) based policies to promote civil rights for all Americans. This meant dissolving the Office of Inclusive Strategy and Excellence at Virginia Tech.
In response, hundreds of people gathered outside Burruss Hall for an organized protest, asking the Board of Visitors not to vote in favor of this. They all marched around campus to make their voices heard.
'We have to protest, we have to stand up, and we have to try to fight for humanity, and love, and people,' Ryleigh Brown, a Sociology major at Virginia Tech who was involved in the protest, said. 'I'm here to fight for humanity.'
The March ended outside the Inn hotel, shortly before the Board of Visitors meeting inside the Latham Ballroom.
Democratic Gov. Beshear vetoes GOP bill aimed at dismantling DEI efforts in public universities
Rector Edward Baine and other board members opposed the move, saying this would take a step back in the inclusion process. Still, the board voted to pass the order.
'At the end of the day, the resolution says we have to be compliant (with the law), and we always have been,' University spokesperson Mark Owczarski said. 'We have to make sure that we remain compliant in the face of evolving and changing law.'
Owczarski said the university will continue to pursue alternate ways going forward to help people feel included.
'152 years ago, we were founded to make available to those who seek it, a Virginia Tech education,' he said. 'That fundamental element of our mission has not and will not change.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Washington Post
26 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Live updates: Senate considering raft of amendments to Trump's massive tax and immigration bill
The Senate is set to convene Monday morning to consider a raft of amendments to President Donald Trump's massive tax and immigration package, most of them offered by Democrats and destined to fail in the Republican-led chamber. Trump has urged Congress to get the bill to his desk by July 4, which is Friday. A Senate-passed bill would require action in the House, which narrowly passed its own version of the One Big Beautiful Bill last month. The legislation would extend tax cuts passed in 2017, enact campaign promises such as no tax on tips and spend hundreds of billions of dollars on the White House's mass deportation drive and national defense priorities. To partially offset the cost, it would make steep cuts to safety-net programs. Democrats are united in opposition. Democratic groups are launching a major organizing push Monday to attack Republicans' signature bill this summer and prepare for the coming elections, an effort that will focus on voter registration and volunteer efforts to make their case to community groups not focused on politics. TORONTO — Canada said late Sunday it would rescind a new tax it planned to collect from large tech companies after President Donald Trump last week called the levy a 'blatant attack' on the United States and said he would suspend trade talks with Ottawa over it. Senate Republicans spent Sunday marshaling support for the centerpiece of President Donald Trump's second-term agenda, a sprawling tax and immigration package, working to prevent defections after a near-revolt over the weekend. The GOP is racing to push the mammoth budget proposal across Trump's desk by a self-imposed July 4 deadline, but fissures remain within the party over the cuts to social benefit and anti-poverty programs and the bill's growing price tag. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said Sunday that he will not seek reelection next year, less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump threatened him with a primary challenge for opposing Trump's massive tax and immigration bill.
San Francisco Chronicle
27 minutes ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
China lifts a nearly 2-year ban on seafood from Japan over Fukushima wastewater
BEIJING (AP) — China has reopened its market to seafood from Japan after a nearly two-year ban over the discharge of slightly radioactive wastewater from the tsunami-destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant. A notice from the customs agency said the ban had been lifted Sunday and that imports from much of Japan would be resumed. The ban, imposed in August 2023, was a major blow to Japan's scallop and sea cucumber exporters. China was the biggest overseas market for Japanese seafood. The decision to lift the ban coincides with efforts by China and Japan to improve ties as both face economic uncertainty because of the American tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump. 'This is a major turning point for Japan, which sees seafood as an important source of exports,' said Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Shinjiro Koizumi, the son of former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The nuclear plant at Fukushima was heavily damaged by a deadly tsunami that followed a huge offshore earthquake in 2011. Water still must be pumped in to cool the radioactive fuel. The water is then stored in what was an ever-growing complex of tanks on the property. After years of debate, the utility won Japanese government permission to discharge the water gradually into the sea after treating it to remove most of the radioactive elements and diluting it with seawater. Japanese officials said the wastewater would be safer than international standards and have negligible environmental impact. China disagreed and imposed a ban, saying the discharge would endanger the fishing industry and coastal communities on its east coast. China still opposes the wastewater discharge, but based on scientific evidence and analysis, it is allowing imports on a conditional basis from parts of Japan that meet China's standards, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said. A ban remains in place for seafood from 10 of Japan's 47 prefectures, including Fukushima and nearby ones. Japanese seafood exporters will have to reapply for registration in China and all imports will have to include a health certificate, a certificate of compliance for radioactive substance testing and a certificate of origin, the Chinese customs agency said. He said it was unclear how quickly scallop and sea cucumber exporters would return to China, because they had sought out other markets since the ban. But he predicted sales of sea cucumbers, a prized delicacy in China, would recover to a certain degree.
Yahoo
27 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Immigration raids leave crops unharvested, California farms at risk
By Tim Reid, Pilar Olivares and Leah Douglas OXNARD, California (Reuters) -Lisa Tate is a sixth-generation farmer in Ventura County, California, an area that produces billions of dollars worth of fruit and vegetables each year, much of it hand-picked by immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Tate knows the farms around her well. And she says she can see with her own eyes how raids carried out by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the area's fields earlier this month, part of President Donald Trump's migration crackdown, have frightened off workers. "In the fields, I would say 70% of the workers are gone," she said in an interview. "If 70% of your workforce doesn't show up, 70% of your crop doesn't get picked and can go bad in one day. Most Americans don't want to do this work. Most farmers here are barely breaking even. I fear this has created a tipping point where many will go bust." In the vast agricultural lands north of Los Angeles, stretching from Ventura County into the state's central valley, two farmers, two field supervisors and four immigrant farmworkers told Reuters this month that the ICE raids have led a majority of workers to stop showing up. That means crops are not being picked and fruit and vegetables are rotting at peak harvest time, they said. One Mexican farm supervisor, who asked not to be named, was overseeing a field being prepared for planting strawberries last week. Usually he would have 300 workers, he said. On this day he had just 80. Another supervisor at a different farm said he usually has 80 workers in a field, but today just 17. BAD FOR BUSINESS Most economists and politicians acknowledge that many of America's agricultural workers are in the country illegally, but say a sharp reduction in their numbers could have devastating impacts on the food supply chain and farm-belt economies. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said an estimated 80% of farmworkers in the U.S. were foreign-born, with nearly half of them in the country illegally. Losing them will cause price hikes for consumers, he said. "This is bad for supply chains, bad for the agricultural industry," Holtz-Eakin said. Over a third of U.S. vegetables and over three-quarters of the country's fruits and nuts are grown in California, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The state's farms and ranches generated nearly $60 billion in agricultural sales in 2023. Of the four immigrant farmworkers Reuters spoke to, two are in the country illegally. These two spoke on the condition of anonymity, out of fear of being arrested by ICE. One, aged 54, has worked in U.S. agricultural fields for 30 years and has a wife and children in the country. He said most of his colleagues have stopped showing up for work. "If they show up to work, they don't know if they will ever see their family again," he said. The other worker in the country illegally told Reuters, "Basically, we wake up in the morning scared. We worry about the sun, the heat, and now a much bigger problem - many not returning home. I try not to get into trouble on the street. Now, whoever gets arrested for any reason gets deported." To be sure, some farmworker community groups said many workers were still returning to the fields, despite the raids, out of economic necessity. The days following a raid may see decreased attendance in the field, but the workers soon return because they have no other sources of income, five groups told Reuters. Workers are also taking other steps to reduce their exposure to immigration agents, like carpooling with people with legal status to work or sending U.S. citizen children to the grocery store, the groups said. ICE CHILL Trump conceded in a post on his Truth Social account this month that ICE raids on farm workers - and also hotel workers - were "taking very good, long-time workers away" from those sectors, "with those jobs being almost impossible to replace." Trump later told reporters, "Our farmers are being hurt badly. They have very good workers." He added, "They're not citizens, but they've turned out to be great." He pledged to issue an order to address the impact, but no policy change has yet been enacted. Trump has always stood up for farmers, said White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly in response to a request for comment on the impact of the ICE raids to farms. "He will continue to strengthen our agricultural industry and boost exports while keeping his promise to enforce our immigration laws," she said. Bernard Yaros, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics, a nonpartisan global economics advisory firm, said in a report published on June 26 that native-born workers tend not to fill the void left by immigrant workers who have left. "Unauthorized immigrants tend to work in different occupations than those who are native-born," he said. ICE operations in California's farmland were scaring even those who are authorized, said Greg Tesch, who runs a farm in central California. "Nobody feels safe when they hear the word ICE, even the documented people. We know that the neighborhood is full of a combination of those with and without documents," Tesch said. "If things are ripe, such as our neighbors have bell peppers here, (if) they don't harvest within two or three days, the crop is sunburned or over mature," said Tesch. "We need the labor."
