Belmont University Rebrands DEI Program, Defies Trump Executive Orders

Via American Greatness,

Belmont University is in the spotlight after videos surfaced showing top administrative officials discussing how they are defying President Trump’s Executive Orders ending official discrimination based on race and sex.

Townhall reports that it has obtained leaked video of officials at the Nashville, Tennessee-based university bragging that they’ve simply rebranded their Diversity, Equity and Inclusivity (DEI) program as the office of Hope, Unity and Belonging (HUB).

According to Jozef Lukey, Assistant Director of Student Success and Flourishing at Belmont, the secret to not getting caught skirting Trump’s executive orders is to keep everything as quiet as possible while working “to create as an inclusive space as possible.”

SCOOP: Leaked recordings from Belmont University in Red State Tennessee show that school officials are trying to trick the Trump administration by simply renaming their DEI program to HUB (Hope, Unity, and Belonging) while changing nothing.

In the recordings, assistant… pic.twitter.com/mBlVlFYWys

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 16, 2025

Lukey states in one of the videos that Belmont officials try to adapt to what’s happening around them but emphasized that this doesn’t mean that their efforts to promote DEI completely stop.

“No, we’re not going to be out in the news doing all these things, ‘this is how we stand and this is what we stand by.’ No, we’re not going to make any outward statements,” Lukey explained, tacitly admitting that Belmont is working from the shadows to violate the executive order.

However, the university’s name-changing ruse has caught the attention of Representative Andy Ogles (R-TN) represents Tennessee’s 5th Congressional district, which includes Belmont.

Ogles has penned a letter to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, calling for a full investigation into the the school’s DEI sleight-of-hand as well as urging investigations into other schools that risk potential defunding over their defiance of the president’s orders reining in DEI.

In that letter, Ogles calls for an immediate compliance review, clarified guidance that mere name changes constitute non-compliance and could result in a loss of federal funding and asks the Department of Education to report to Congress on the prevalence of this type of rebranding.

Ogles tells McMahon that, “Belmont University, like all universities, must understand that if they persist in promoting racist DEI programs in violation of their students’ rights, they will be defunded.”

SCOOP UPDATE: Rep. Andy Ogles from Tennessee’s 5th congressional district located close to Belmont University in Nashville, has responded to this morning’s leaked videos exposing the university’s secret DEI program and concealment of illegals enrolled at the school.

Rep. Ogles… https://t.co/iw1yMwCKo9 pic.twitter.com/kf1FIziLYc

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 17, 2025