A message sent to journal authors by mistake requiring their work comply with the Trump administration’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion order revealed to researchers how vulnerable academic journal autonomy may be to the federal government’s attack on higher education.

On Oct. 30, Kathryn Wiley, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at Howard University, received an email from the editors of The Excellence in Education Journal (EEJ), a small, open access peer-reviewed publication where she’s aiming to publish an article about parent engagement.

The email included reminders about an approaching deadline, formatting requirements and a request for authors to “please be mindful in your publication of the President’s executive orders from January 2025 with regard to DEI and make sure the publication is not in violation of the order.”

In January, President Trump issued a sweeping executive order telling government agencies to terminate all support for DEI programs and encouraged the private sector to do the same. Government agencies have since used the order to justify massive freezes and cuts to federal grants supporting university research and students from underrepresented backgrounds. Although it’s facing legal challenges, the order remains in place. While the executive order is not law, some private and public institutions—including a number of colleges and universities—have chosen to pre-emptively comply by eliminating DEI initiatives the government hadn’t already flagged.

But Wiley wasn’t expecting EEJ—whose website says it encourages writing “about practices that promote the improvement of education”—to be among them.

“Obviously, it raises questions about academic freedom and the applicability of an executive order to a journal,” she said in an interview with Inside Higher Ed. “But fundamentally, it was so jarring to see that from an education journal … My whole manuscript is about educational equity.”

Seeking clarity, Wiley reached out to Ann Cancilla Gaudino, the journal’s founder and editor-in-chief and one of two editors whose name was in the email sign off.

“Can you please explain the inclusion of compliance with the Trump Administration’s Anti-DEI Executive Order as a requirement of manuscripts submitted to EEJ, per the correspondence that went out recently? As I understand it, this order is being legally contested. Why is complying with this order a requirement?,” Wiley wrote in an Oct. 31 email to Gaudino. “I see journals, editors, reviewers, and authors as playing an important role in maintaining a space for issues of educational equity and the inclusion of this requirement is very concerning.”

‘Disappointing’ and ‘Shameful’

Wiley also posted about it on LinkedIn. “This is not ok,” she wrote. “Whether implicit or explicit, journals cannot kowtow to this anti-DEI, anti-civil rights, anti-Black whitewashing of academic journals.”

Numerous colleagues responded, characterizing the journal’s apparent compliance with Trump’s anti-DEI orders as “disappointing,” “shameful” and an “absolutely wild” example of “compliance in advance.” Others called for a boycott.

Although the federal government has scrutinized the merits of some research journals this year, many publications are using their platforms to voice opposition to the Trump administration’s anti-DEI policies and analyze the implications for health, education and other public policy issues.

For editors and reviewers in the field of education—whose work often touches on the racial inequities endemic to the American education system—Wiley said it’s an especially critical time to defend focusing on racial inequality in spite of Trump’s efforts to discourage it.

“So many scholars of color have worked for decades to bring those conversations to mainstream journals. That’s ground we can’t lose,” she told Inside Higher Ed. “Whether it’s work by scholars of color about race or work about racial inequality writ large, editors, journals and reviewers have to hold the line.”

Editor Retracts ‘Error’

Gaudino responded to Wiley’s email on Nov. 4 explaining that the journal distributed the anti-DEI guidelines by mistake.

“This statement was made in error by a new team member and will be retracted,” Gaudino wrote in the email. “There is absolutely no requirement for manuscripts to reflect the Trump anti-DEI order.”

In response to follow-up questions from Inside Higher Ed about the error, Gaudino elaborated:

“We are an independent journal and we have never implemented anti-DEI policies nor do we have any intention of implementing anti-DEI policies. [The person who sent the message] is brand new and just didn’t know any better. She heard there was an executive order and thought everyone in the country had to implement it,” Gaudino wrote in an email. “As soon as I was aware of her error, I had her send an email retracting the statement.”

Wiley’s manuscript is still under review at EEJ, and she’s taking the journal’s word for it that the anti-DEI guidance was an honest mistake. But no matter how it happened, the now-retracted guidelines heightened her unease about the influence Trump’s policies will have on academe.

“There’s a lot of fear right now that the ability to publicly speak about civil rights and discrimination is being taken away. This incident really evoked that fear for me and others,” she said. “And whether journals formally say it or not, the cultural pressure to do what was in that email could be present.”