Poll: Support For Campus Diversity Policies Is Sputtering In California

SACRAMENTO, California — Campus diversity policies are drawing skepticism in deep-blue California, according to a new poll from POLITICO and its partners.

Nearly four in 10 registered voters in the state think universities with diversity, equity and inclusion programs that favor certain groups for hiring and promotion should lose federal funding, a new POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey found.

California voters are deeply split along party lines over hot-button issues on college campuses, including DEI programs and whether antisemitism is a major problem, the poll showed. But a plurality of independents — 42 percent — do not support such diversity programs, compared to 30 percent who disagree that campuses with DEI hiring policies should be penalized.

The polling comes amid President Donald Trump’s escalating war on diversity initiatives. On his first day back in the White House he deemed DEI programs discriminatory and moved to eradicate them from the public sector. Democrats for years have led the pro-diversity push, but have grappled with how to significantly counter Trump’s rhetoric and punitive actions, particularly on campuses.

Diversity policies have become more politically divisive in recent years, with the term DEI itself becoming highly polarizing as it has been “aggressively criticized by the Trump administration as being deeply problematic,” Possibility Lab executive director Amy Lerman said.

About 71 percent of Republicans surveyed agreed that colleges with DEI programs should lose federal cash, compared to the 18 percent of Democrats.

The survey also sought the opinion of 500 POLITICO Pro subscribers, a heavily Democratic group of California policy influencers, who overwhelmingly disagreed that campuses with DEI programs should be stripped of federal funds.

Trump has carried out a sustained offensive against the nation’s elite higher education institutions over claims that the schools’ diversity initiatives violate civil rights laws, opening investigations alleging race-based discrimination in programs and activities at University of California, Berkeley, Cal Poly Humboldt and Cal State San Bernardino. It is also probing the UC system over its hiring practices and San Jose State over the participation of a transgender athlete on its women’s volleyball team.

The UC system this year responded to the change in federal policy when it stopped requiring candidates for faculty positions to submit diversity statements.

The White House is also taking aim at campuses over claims of antisemitism, another issue that has taken on a strong partisan tinge. The University of California, Los Angeles faces a $1 billion settlement demand from Trump to restore $584 million in research grants that his administration froze over allegations that UCLA failed to adequately protect Jewish students and faculty during spring 2024 protests over the war in Gaza.

UCLA and UC Berkeley are on a list of 10 schools that the Trump administration said it would visit over alleged antisemitic incidents, and several other UC campuses are on a separate list of universities that the Department of Education is investigating over antisemitism.

Private universities such as Harvard, Columbia and Brown have been targeted by similar probes and have either settled or are reportedly nearing a deal. Meanwhile, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a possible 2028 Democratic presidential contender, has called such demands of UCLA “extortion” and an effort to stifle academic freedom.

When asked whether antisemitism is a major problem on college campuses in the state, 61 percent of Republicans agreed compared to just 37 percent of Democrats and 43 percent of independents.

Trump’s high-profile feuds with the universities are “very symbolic for a lot of people about what is happening in culture, generally, and so I think they've become very clearly mapped on to party elites, which is then reflected in partisan voters,” said Lerman, who is also a professor of public policy and political science.

The Trump administration announced its investigation into UCLA hours after the campus had agreed to pay $6.5 million to settle a lawsuit from Jewish students and a professor over the protests, with UC Board of Regents Chair Janet Reilly stating that the UC is “committed to doing better moving forward.”

The UC has refuted Trump’s antisemitism allegations, however, sharing statements from Jewish community leaders claiming that the administration is using Jews as a shield to punish higher education institutions. Prominent Jewish faculty at the public university system also signed a letter this week calling the $1 billion demand “misguided and punitive."

The administration also demanded UCLA eliminate scholarships based on race or ethnicity as well as the use of proxies for race in the admissions process.

Lerman said respondents who were asked about whether antisemitism is a problem on campuses could be reconciling two different concerns.

“Even if you believe that antisemitism is a problem on college campuses … you can still be concerned about the way that the Trump administration has gone about forcing change, whether it's concerns about academic freedom or concerns about university autonomy or about the financial penalties that the administration is requiring of universities,” Lerman said.

Polling also showed a partisan split over whether colleges should be required to show they teach both liberal and conservative perspectives. About 83 percent of Republicans agreed, compared to the 42 percent of Democrats and 56 percent of independents

A majority of Californians overall, 56 percent, agreed that colleges should teach balanced perspectives.

The survey consists of two separate opinion studies of the California electorate and policy influencers in the state, fielded by TrueDot, the artificial intelligence-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center and Possibility Lab at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. The public opinion study, made possible in part by the California Constitution Center, was in the field between July 28 and August 12, 2025.

The sample of 1,445 registered voters was selected at random by Verasight, and the margin of error estimate for the full sample is plus/minus 2.6 percent. Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish, and include an oversample of Hispanic voters. The policy influencer study was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 11, among 512 subscribers to POLITICO Pro, and the margin of error estimate is plus/minus 3.7 percent.