“Fewer White People” Fears Driving DEI Bans, Says ASU Coordinator as Programs Persist
May 13, 2026
Despite federal pressure, action from the Arizona Board of Regents, and ongoing legal challenges, new undercover footage from Accuracy in Media suggests that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion remains embedded at Arizona State University. Administrators acknowledge making cosmetic changes to create the appearance of compliance, while in reality changing very little.
Accuracy in Media’s journalists have now spoken with multiple ASU officials who don’t dispute the existence of DEI bans. Instead, they describe how the university has adapted, by replacing key words while maintaining the underlying programs.
Nancy Landers, a coordinator in ASU’s School of Social and Family Dynamics, was direct when asked whether the campus environment was similar to progressive states like California. “It is,” she said. “Thankfully it is.”
Landers credited ASU President Michael Crow with setting that tone, referencing his appearance on PBS’s Amanpour and Company. According to Landers, the university has “managed to avoid the worst of the vitriol” directed at institutions that openly support DEI.
She reassured our investigator, saying, “You don’t have to worry.”
But her explanation of how ASU is navigating the bans gives cause for concern.
“We have to … take the actual words out,” Landers said. “Colleges all over the country do.”
In practice, that has meant renaming programs and removing terms that have become politically or legally sensitive. “We had to change the name of the centers,” she explained, noting that even the word “diversity” had to be eliminated.
Referring to Donald Trump’s opposition to DEI, Landers offered her interpretation: “All I can think of is that it implies fewer white people and that is threatening to him.”
Yet, by her own account, those changes are largely cosmetic.
“We’ve got that part changed but it isn’t changing the work,” Landers said. “We had to take it out, the wording.”
Landers is the latest in a growing list of ASU administrators whom AIM has caught on camera saying the same thing—comply on paper, but keep the substance intact.
Take action at SaveASU.com to send one message to all of the relevant elected officials. If taxpayer-funded universities are rebranding instead of complying, they should be held accountable.