Logo for InfluenceWatch InfluenceWatch

Donate
Other Group

Eastern Washington University (EWU)

Type:

Public University
Formation:

1882
Location:

Cheney, WA
President:

Shari McMahan

Contact InfluenceWatch with suggested edits or tips for additional profiles.

Eastern Washington University (EWU) is a public university in Cheney, Washington. In 2024, EWU became the first university in Washington. 1

In February 2025, EWU was listed by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) as a public university that violated the Trump administration’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The notice alleged EWU, amongst other universities, had violated Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by participating in programs that excluded members based on race or ethnicity while being a taxpayer-funded institution. 2

Background

Eastern Washington University was founded in 1882 as the Benjamin P. Cheney Academy following a donation from transportation industrialist Benjamin Cheney. In 1889, after Washington became a state, EWU became the State Normal School at Cheney, and in 1937, it changed its name again to Eastern Washington College of Education. 1

In 1961, EWU’s name changed to Eastern Washington State College before the Washington state legislature made a final name change to Eastern Washington University in 1977. 1

EWU has an enrollment of 10,491 and over 123,000 alumni as of 2025. 1

DEI Initiatives

2024 Comprehensive Plan

In December 2024, Eastern Washington University published a report titled, “Comprehensive Plan for New EWU Division People, Culture and Equity.” 3 The report was created by CORE Perspectives LLC, a DEI consulting company, and provides an overview of how EWU planned to incorporate DEI initiatives into its human resources, equity, civil rights and Title IX programs. It created a list of executive positions to oversee equity initiatives and recommendations for how those initiatives should be implemented. 4

The report included recommendations for EWU to increase the number of DEI “practitioners” to reduce the workload of existing staff, to make student groups and centers take the primary responsibility of implementing DEI programs, and to task academic programs with tracking the progress of students based on their backgrounds and to provide academic support based on students’ backgrounds. 4

EWU’s strategic plan included enrollment, graduation, and academic goals that were categorized by its total, by ethnicity, and by socioeconomic status. Each goal varies by ethnicity and included lower expectations for ethnic minority and low-income student populations. 5

Feminist Programs

In 1977, Eastern Washington University founded its Women’s and Gender Education (WAGE) Center in support of its Gender, Women’s and Sexuality Studies (GWSS) program. 6 The WAGE center promotes feminism and diversity through events, initiatives, and programs at EWU. It offers co-curricular programs that promote incorporating the identity politics concept of intersectionality as well as feminism in students’ schoolwork and research as well as by the local community. 7

In March 2023, the WAGE Center’s Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI) Committee and the GWSS program cosponsored a workshop titled “How to be an Effective Anti-Racism Ally.” The workshop addressed what it describes as an overrepresentation of white women within EWUs’ racial equity committees and argued the presence of white women resulted in a “susceptibility to collude with oppression.” The announcement of the workshop argued, “Allies should consider how to better equip themselves so that they don’t cause harm to members of marginalized communities in their activism and contribute to dynamics that perpetuates the inequities they seek to dismantle.” It also stated the workshop will discuss how white women can use their familiarity and experiences with “patriarchy” to be more effective anti-racist advocates. 8

In May 2024, the WAGE Center hosted an event that discussed the work of Detroit Eviction Defense and other activist groups that advocate for ending evictions. It supported the concept of “land claims” that entitled tenants and stewards of a property to reside on a property, usurping property rights. The advertisement for the event stated its opposition to evictions derived from an opposition to “racial capitalism,” support for feminism, and support for “collectivism of the Black radical tradition.” 9

LGBT Programs

In 2010, EWU founded its Eagle Pride Center, offering LGBT-centered programs and events for current and prospective students. 6 The Eagle Pride Center’s webpage invites students to visit for “staff support,” resource pamphlets, and “safer sex products.” 10

EWU’s Eagle Pride Center hosts LGBT advocacy training for students, faculty, and staff that is broken up into two levels. The first level is an in-person training where participants are taught “common” LGBT terms and concepts, identify an EWU or state policy that is allegedly relevant to LGBT students, and create strategies for “supporting students” as an LGBT advocate on campus. The Eagle Pride Center does not publish information regarding the details of its second level of its advocacy training. 11

Under its diversity resources, EWU’s LGBT webpage states that its communication studies; gender, women’s and sexuality studies; psychology; social work; and sociology degree programs cover the “social role” of gender and sex in “families, economics, personal relationships, politics, language and power structures.” The webpage also promotes the sexuality and queer studies minor as it covers the topics of gender; sexuality; feminism; “transgender identities and histories;” “queer and emerging identities;” and “systems of oppression and privilege.” EWU also promotes the courses within the programs that discuss LGBT, feminist, and gender studies as standalone courses for interested students. 6

Trump Administration Controversy

In February 2025, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) listed Eastern Washington University amongst a list of public universities that violated the Trump administration’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The notice came after an investigation found that the schools participated in DEI programs that potentially violate Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination based on race and ethnicity in education programs and recipients of public funding. The ED sent a letter to the universities informing them that they will lose their public funding if they do not end any programs or initiatives that use racial preferences or stereotypes. Eastern Washington University was listed in the letter as an organization that engaged in “race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs,” and it cited participation in the Ph.D. Project, which seeks to increase the participation of ethnic minorities in business. 2

In July 2025, EWU announced that it would be renaming its Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to the Office of Employee Belonging, Development, and Leadership. In the press release announcing the change, EWU stated that the focus of the office is “cultivating an inclusive workplace,” and the senior director for the office, Kim Davis, stated, “Diversity, equity, and inclusion remain at the core of who we are.” The announcement also reported that EWU’s Center for Inclusive Excellence changed its name to the Center for Leadership Excellence. 12

In April 2025, EWU cosigned a letter published by the American Association of Colleges and Universities condemning the Trump administration for what it described as engaging in “unprecedented government overreach and political interference now endangering American higher education.” The letter refers to the administration banning DEI initiatives by publicly funded colleges and programs, investigating antisemitism, and investigating transgender programs and policies that violate the Civil Rights Act. 13

Anti-Israel Activities

In May 2024, Eastern Washington University’s chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation organized anti-Israel protests at, repeating the controversial chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever.” Student organizer Ka’din Rahman stated that the goals of the protest were to advocate that the university divest from Israeli investments, call for a ceasefire of the Israel-Hamas war, and accuse Israel of committing a genocide. 14

In June 2025, the director of EWU’s International Affairs Program, Majid Sharifi, expressed anti-Israel and anti-American viewpoints. Sharifi stated, “the US is a colony of Israel. It’s the tail that wags the dog,” and he expressed support for Iran’s then-Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. 15 16

Leadership

Shari McMahan is the president of Eastern Washington University. She previously worked as provost and vice president of academic affairs at California State University, San Bernardino, and prior to that, she worked as an administrator and professor at California State University, Fullerton. 17

References

  1. “Why Eastern University.” Accessed March 18, 2026. https://www.ewu.edu/about/.
  2. Smith, Helen. “These Washington schools under investigation for violating DEI bans, accusations of antisemitism.” King 5 NBC. March 16, 2025. https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/washington-universities-under-investigation-violating-trump-dei-policies/281-1ccd7103-e584-4131-90a2-8c80a77e0f59.
  3. “Welcome.” Eastern Washington University. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://inside.ewu.edu/investingindei/.
  4. “Comprehensive Plan for New EWU Division People, Culture and Equity.” Eastern Washington University. December 2024. https://in.ewu.edu/investingindei/wp-content/uploads/sites/476/2025/04/EWU-Comprehensive-Plan-for-People-Culture-and-Equity-Final.pdf.
  5. “Core Themes = Student Success.” Eastern Washington University. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://inside.ewu.edu/strategic-planning-old/core-themes/.
  6. “LGBTQ+ Community.” Eastern Washington University. Accessed March 17, 2026. https://www.ewu.edu/about/diversity/lgbtq/.
  7. “About Us.” Eastern Washington University. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://www.ewu.edu/cahss/gwss/wage-center/.
  8. “How to be an Effective Anti-Racism Ally.” Eastern Washington University. February 27, 2023. https://www.ewu.edu/cahss/news/how-to-be-an-effective-anti-racism-ally/.
  9. “A Logic of Care and Grassroots Claims to Home in Detroit.” Eastern Washington University. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://www.ewu.edu/cahss/news/a-logic-of-care-and-grassroots-claims-to-home-in-detroit/.
  10. “You Belong at Eastern.” Eastern Washington University. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://inside.ewu.edu/pridecenter/.
  11. https://inside.ewu.edu/pridecenter/advocate-training/.
  12. “Office for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Renamed to Office of Employee Belonging, Development & Leadership.” Eastern Washington University. July 16, 2025. https://www.ewu.edu/news/office-for-diversity-equity-inclusion-renamed-to-office-of-employee-belonging-development-leadership/.
  13. Finnegan, Molly. “Read the full letter from universities opposing ‘government intrusion.’” PBS. April 24, 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/read-the-full-letter-from-universities-opposing-government-intrusion.
  14. Hanlon, James. “EWU students join protest against Israel-Hamas war.” The Spokesman-Review. May 8, 2024. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/may/08/ewu-students-join-protest-against-israel-hamas-war/.
  15. “A Propaganda Festival at UW.” The Cholent. January 23, 2026. https://thecholent.substack.com/p/a-propaganda-festival-at-uw.
  16. Propaganda & Co. “Iran vs Israel with Prof. Majid Sharifi.” YouTube. June 18, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwCRaEMwXSg.
  17. “About Shari McMahan, PhD.” Eastern Washington University. Accessed March 18, 2026. https://www.ewu.edu/news/about-shari-mcmahan-phd/.
  See an error? Let us know!