Recent changes in state- and federal-level policy regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have undoubtedly caused confusion and uncertainty for career services teams in higher education.
How can we serve all students equitably and create a curated online experience that makes relevant resources easier to find for the students who need them—while still complying with evolving laws and policies?
As a company founded over 10 years ago on the mission of making career services accessible to anyone, anywhere, anytime, this topic is incredibly important to us.
After discussing amongst our team and consulting with our legal counsel, here is some information and recommendations we’ve put together for our partners in career services. Specifically, these are recommendations for expanding a career center’s online presence to improve access to career resources, whether that’s with a website or a virtual career center powered by the uConnect platform.
What content and resources are considered discriminatory?
First, it’s important to define (as best as we can) what is considered discriminatory based on current federal law.
While we are not legal experts, we have been advised by our legal counsel that, as of March 2025, federal anti-discrimination law has been narrowly applied to resources, programs, and opportunities that provide exclusive benefits to, or impose burdens on, students based on their race, gender, or ethnicity.
If you are curating content into career communities on your virtual career center, such as articles containing career advice, information about notable graduates, or similar resources you think might interest the community, this content is unlikely to violate existing anti-discrimination law and is also likely protected by the First Amendment. If you have resources, programs, or opportunities that require students to identify with a particular race, gender, or ethnicity, in order to be eligible, we recommend seeking legal counsel, or removing these posts from your platform.
Note for uConnect customers: These same considerations also apply to our Curation Kits. As part of our virtual career center platform, uConnect offers curated feeds of career content aimed to inform and inspire career pathways for particular student populations. These kits include career information that may be more relevant for certain populations, but this content neither affords specific career opportunities, nor limits access, to students of specific identities. It is therefore unlikely to raise concerns under existing anti-discrimination law and is instead likely protected speech under the First Amendment.
Additionally, not all of the Curation Kits are related to race, ethnicity, and gender. Here’s a breakdown of which kits are related to race, ethnicity, and gender and which are not:
- Black/African American ✅
- LGBTQIA+ ✅
- First-Generation/Low-Income
- Veterans
- Neurodiverse
- Hispanic ✅
- Students with Disabilities
- Women ✅
- International Students
- Student Athletes
6 ways to support marginalized students in light of anti-DEI policies–but still be in compliance
While it’s hard to keep track of the ever-evolving DEI policies, here are a few ways we think career services teams in higher education can still support marginalized and underrepresented students. And we’ve pulled some of these ideas from what we’ve seen work well for our partners who have dealt with similar anti-DEI policies at the state level over the last several years.
1. Keep content the same, but add disclaimers to community pages
If you have identity/affinity community pages on your website or virtual career center that target underrepresented populations, you might consider adding disclaimers to those pages that indicate something like:
- Content and resources shared in these communities are not exclusive to any particular student populations, and/or
- This content is for all people who support the advancement of particular student populations
Here is an example from Binghamton University on their LGBTQ+ community page:
“This web page is meant to provide information and resources to help you navigate your career development as a student identifying as LGBTQ+. We are here to support you throughout the process and to answer your questions about how to address topics like identity disclosure and finding LGBTQ friendly employers throughout your job search and in the workplace. Feel free to browse the Fleishman Center resources to educate yourself about your rights and policies.
This web page is designed to be open to any and all Binghamton University students, faculty and staff regardless of race, color, national origin, or sex, and is consistent with all current governing federal and state nondiscrimination law.”
Note for uConnect customers: We encourage you to reach out to your customer success manager for additional guidance on adding disclaimers.
2. Reduce public visibility of communities that are related to race, ethnicity, and gender
In addition to adding a disclaimer, you can make your identity/affinity community pages less publicly visible in a few different ways:
1. Hide your community pages from front-end navigation
If your best (or only) option is to remove your community pages related to race, ethnicity, and gender, you can remove them from your navigation and front-end filters so they aren’t visible to visitors. However, you could still keep the link/URL to those community pages so you can reference them in advising appointments, share them with career champions (faculty, staff, etc.), and in direct communications to students.
If you have a traditional career center website, you can do this yourself or with assistance from your web/marketing/IT team. If you have a virtual career center powered by uConnect, reach out to your customer success manager, and we’ll help you hide these community pages and save the links.
2. Deindex community pages
Another way to reduce public visibility is to deindex your community pages from search engines (Google, in particular). That way, the pages are still accessible through the platform or a direct link but less findable for the broader public.
If your career center has a traditional website, you can use this Google help article to deindex pages from Google search results. If you have a virtual career center powered by uConnect, check out this help article for information about deindexing.
3. Lock certain content pieces behind SSO authentication
One final way to limit viewership or visibility is to lock specific pieces of content (like resources, blogs, or videos) behind a single sign-on (SSO). That way, you can restrict sensitive or critical content to just the audience you identify on a content-by-content basis, and they’ll be required to log in to access the content.
If you have a traditional career center website, you may need assistance from your web/marketing/IT team to lock content behind an SSO. If you have a virtual career center powered by uConnect, read this help article for a step-by-step guide.
3. Publish career content tailored for impacted populations into alternative communities (or adjust naming)
We know that career content personalized for marginalized and/or underrepresented student populations can be a highly effective way to provide relevant resources to those students.
So, if you’re hesitant to curate resources into specific identity/affinity community pages, you might consider publishing those resources in other communities that align with every other way students might identify, including:
- Class year
- Academic majors or college
- Career pathways or industries
- Other student types not related to race, ethnicity, or gender (i.e., first generation, low-income, international, veterans, student athletes, etc.)
- Particular programs, special events, or rebranded initiatives
You could also try adjusting the names of your identity-based community pages. For example, you could adjust community naming from “DEI” or “Identity and Affinity” to:
- Career Success for All Students
- Inclusive Career Resources
- Student Belonging Resources
- Career Readiness Resources
- Resources for Student Advancement
4. Spin up community pages for faculty and staff
This is always a best practice, regardless of state and federal DEI policies, but another tactic you can try is to create a community page for faculty and staff on your campus, e.g. Career Champions.
You can populate this page with career content that might otherwise go in identity and affinity communities for those champions to refer to students in their organic, daily interactions (classroom, advising appointments, events, etc.). Once the page is built, proactively let faculty and staff know those resources are there and available should they want to refer students.
Most students default to asking those they already know and trust for advice and support. If students haven’t engaged with career services before, they are unlikely to have a trusted relationship with career center staff, making faculty and staff an ideal partner in scaling career services and making sure students know about the resources available to them. That is true now more than ever!
Here are a few good examples of faculty and staff community pages:
- Faculty and staff engagement hub (University of Miami)
- Faculty and staff page (University of Connecticut)
- Faculty and staff page (Duke University)
Note for uConnect customers: Your customer success manager can help you spin up a page for faculty and staff, so be sure to reach out.
5. Lean into email
To continue communicating and sharing curated content with specific student populations, use email and audience segmentation. This tried-and-true best practice is already a proven way to engage students more effectively, and in the context of changing DEI policies, it’s also a great way to share information in a more direct and less publicly visible way.
If you have a traditional career center website, you will likely have to create these segmented emails manually and pick and choose what content to send to which student populations. It’s time-consuming, but worth it! Your student workers may be able to assist with this task.
If you have a virtual career center powered by uConnect, you can use the email features on the backend of your platform to collect more preferences and attributes from all students, encourage students to pick their preferences, and turn on automated email alerts. The alerts will automatically curate content and resources based on student preferences. To get started, check out this help article and/or contact your customer success manager.
6. Showcase your student outcomes data
Another best practice that also happens to be especially relevant in light of anti-DEI policies is the use of student outcomes data. Whether you organize and display your outcomes data manually or use uConnect’s Outcomes Data Visualization (ODV) module, highlighting outcomes data is a great way for students to see the pathways taken by past students who identify in a similar way.
With uConnect’s ODV module, in particular, students can explore outcomes data that includes:
- First destination
- Top employers
- Starting salary
- Experiential learning participation
- Employment industry
- Employment job function (e.g. engineering, finance, consulting, education, health services, marketing, etc.)
- Employment locations
- Top universities
- Degree types
- Fields of study
With all of that information at their disposal, underrepresented students will have a better understanding of how a degree from your institution translates to the real world.
Conclusion
We know things feel uncertain, and it’s hard to keep track of the changing policies, but we are here to support our partners and friends in career services however we can.
To stay up-to-date on what your peers at other institutions are doing, ask questions, and attend events related to changing DEI policies, we encourage you to join the Career Everywhere community. It’s free and open to any career services professional in higher education.
