She advanced DEI at her university. Her son-in-law, Vice President JD Vance, wants to end it nationwide.


She advanced DEI at her university. Her son-in-law, Vice President JD Vance, wants to end it nationwide.

By Graham Kates, Daniel Klaidman Updated on: March 12, 2025 / 10:12 AM EDT / CBS News As universities around the country race to assess new federal policies geared toward ending programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, one college administrator is in a potentially tricky position. Lakshmi Chilukuri is the provost of the University of California San Diego's Sixth College. She is also Vice President JD Vance's mother-in-law. Chilukuri helped create a pilot course on race, ethnicity and gender in biology and medicine, served on the university's biological sciences diversity committee, and has written proudly of her school's commitment to diversity. The university features its diversity efforts prominently on its website and a letter from Chilukuri to incoming students emphasizes the school's "steadfast adherence to principles that drive equity, inclusion, and an embrace of diversity." "As we come into the new academic year with the pandemic not quite yet in the rearview mirror, with issues of equity and systemic racism, anti-Blackness and anti-Asian racism yet unresolved, we have before us both opportunity and responsibility," Chilukuri wrote in the undated letter. The Internet Archive shows the letter was first posted in late 2021, with minor edits made over the next year. It has since remained as the main body of text on the Sixth College's "About" page. A crackdown on what President Trump and Vance call "wokeness" has been a hallmark of their administration's first weeks. Widespread scalebacks of DEI programs in academia, government and across corporations have marked some of the administration's earliest marquee victories.