University of Montana conducting ‘compliance audit’ in response to ‘Dear Colleague’ letter

The University of Montana last week directed leaders of all campus operations to conduct a thorough review of their programs and activities for compliance with new legal guidance from the U.S. Department of Education — the latest in a series of evolving developments around President Donald Trump’s fast-paced agenda to rid the federal government of “woke” policies.

According to a memo distributed by UM Institutional Compliance Director Jessica Weltman and obtained by Montana Free Press, the campuswide “compliance audit” comes in response to a trio of recent executive orders barring educational institutions from employing certain race- and diversity-based practices. Failure to comply could result in the Trump administration withholding federal funding from those institutions, though Weltman noted that UM “believes it is currently in compliance” with all new federal directives.

“We’ve never done race-based admissions or hiring or anything like that, but to do our due diligence, we are doing kind of a two-week kind of compliance review,” UM Director of Strategic Communications Dave Kuntz told MTFP on Feb. 21.