The University of Illinois system is telling its institutions they can’t consider race, color, national origin or sex in hiring, tenure, promotion and student financial aid decisions—a move that’s drawn opposition from a faculty union at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Aaron Krall, president of UIC United Faculty, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors, said the UI system circumvented shared governance.

“This was a directive that came down and surprised everyone,” Krall said.

The system implemented a policy saying it and its universities don’t consider race or the other factors in determining eligibility for need- or merit-based financial aid. In a statement, the system further said it “issued guidance to its universities to ensure that hiring, promotion, and tenure processes follow the same standards.”

The statement said, “There may be some variation in how and when changes are fully operationalized” across its three universities: UIC, Springfield and Urbana-Champaign. The system didn’t provide Inside Higher Ed an interview Tuesday about why it’s making this change now.

Krall shared communications that he said UIC officials sent out last week. One, from Chancellor Marie Lynn Miranda and others, suggested the student aid change would apply to “donor-funded, college-determined and institutionally funded scholarships” and said “UIC will replace its Affirmative Action Plan with a Nondiscrimination and Merit-Based Hiring Plan.”

In another message Krall provided, a UIC official wrote that “faculty may no longer submit a Statement on Efforts to Promote Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in the dossier, nor may faculty members be evaluated on norms related to” DEI. The official wrote that the system “made this decision after carefully considering the increased risk to our faculty and to the University that these criteria present in the current climate.”

Krall said. “The most shocking thing to me, really, is they want to change the policy and make it retroactive—so we have [affected] faculty members going up for promotion right now who have already submitted their promotion materials.” He said the union has demanded the right to bargain over these changes.