Ask PolitiFact: Did JD Vance benefit from DEI initiatives at Yale Law?

President Donald Trump’s first actions of his second presidential term have included executive orders to end federal diversity, equity and inclusion programs, repeal DEI rules and encourage private companies to do the same.

A PolitiFact reader saw social media posts saying that Trump’s second-in-command, Vice President JD Vance, benefited from DEI programs.

"Was Vance a recipient of DEI benefits when he was in college?" the reader asked. "I saw a Reel on Facebook stating that he was."

The PolitiFact reader could have been referring to a viral TikTok video, posted Jan. 26 and reposted across platforms, that claimed Vance benefited from DEI initiatives as a Yale Law School student. 

In the video, a man said he and Vance both benefited from DEI initiatives as Yale students. "Efforts to increase and push diversity, equity and inclusion is something that benefited JD Vance, and he is now turning around and he’s pulling the ladder up, so that people like him, who grew up in poor Appalachia, who joined the Marines, who were able to use the GI Bill, are no longer able to follow in his footsteps, because he wants to remove the same DEI programs that got him to where he is today," the man said.

PolitiFact contacted the video’s creator, Thomas Burke, for comment. He named two specific DEI initiatives he said benefited him and Vance: programs to increase veteran enrollment and retention through recruiting and financial aid and veteran-specific affinity groups.

Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 2003 after high school and served for four years as a combat correspondent. In August 2005, he deployed to Iraq for six months, where his public affairs work included embedding with units that were on patrol. He ended his service as his North Carolina base’s media relations officer and was discharged in 2007.

PolitiFact contacted Vance’s office to ask about Vance’s involvement with Yale Law’s veterans groups and causes; whether his Yale Law admissions essay referred to his military service; and whether Vance believes veteran-focused recruiting, admissions, financial aid and affinity group programs can be considered DEI. 

Vance’s press secretary, Taylor Van Kirk, sent PolitiFact a statement denying that veterans are DEI beneficiaries. 

Experts told us DEI is an expansive label that can, but does not always, include policies focused on veterans. At colleges and universities, DEI-related policies can involve recruiting, admissions, financial aid and campus life programs. 

A U.S. Department of Labor website says, "Veterans who are disabled, who served on active duty in the Armed Forces during certain specified time periods or in military campaigns are entitled to preference over others in hiring for virtually all federal government jobs." 

Lori Patton Davis, a UCLA School of Education & Information Studies professor whose research includes campus diversity initiatives, said DEI programs are misunderstood.

"In general, people erroneously equate DEI solely with initiatives to advance the conditions of Black people or other racial groups, LGBTQ groups and women," she wrote in an email to PolitiFact. "However, DEI boosts opportunities for low-income first generation people, veterans (and) people with disabilities."

Julie J. Park, a University of Maryland, College Park professor whose research includes diversity and equity in higher education, told PolitiFact that DEI can include recruiting and retaining underrepresented groups and advising and support for organizations aimed at students from different backgrounds, including military backgrounds.

Vance published a bestselling 2016 memoir, "Hillbilly Elegy," about his tumultuous early family life in Ohio. He has written and spoken about using the 2008 Post-9/11 GI Bill to help pay for his 2009 Ohio State University undergraduate degree and relying on the bill’s Yellow Ribbon Program to afford his 2013 Yale Law School degree.

In a 2010 Marine Corps news article, Vance (who was then called James D. Hamel) said the Yellow Ribbon Program enabled him to attend law school.

"Yale Law pays 50 percent of the tuition, and the Department of Veterans Affairs matches that amount to cover the full rate of tuition," Vance said at the time. "The truth is, if it was not for the Yellow Ribbon Program I would not be going to law school."

Vance’s memoir, published six years later, mentioned his law school financial aid but not the Yellow Ribbon Program.

"I was sufficiently committed to going to Yale Law that I was willing to accept the two hundred thousand dollars or so in debt that I knew I’d accrue. Yet the financial aid package Yale offered exceeded my wildest dreams," Vance wrote. "In my first year, it was nearly a full ride. That wasn’t because of anything I’d done or earned — it was because I was one of the poorest kids in school. Yale offered tens of thousands (of dollars) in need-based aid. It was the first time being so broke paid so well."

A September 2024 Yale Law School article said veteran enrollment had grown to 9% of the school’s 2027 class as "a result of recruiting efforts and participation in the Yellow Ribbon Program, which helps veterans pay for tuition and fees" not covered by the GI Bill.

Today, Yale Law frames veteran enrollment as part of its DEI efforts, although it’s unclear how it described these efforts when Vance was applying to law school. Conservatives have targeted Yale Law’s current dean, Heather Gerken, for promoting DEI programs, including in student recruitment and enrollment, at the school.

An October 2022 school article said under Gerken’s leadership, the law school had tripled the number of veterans who enroll.

Yale Law’s offices of admission and financial aid referred PolitiFact’s inquiries to its public affairs office, which did not comment.

In his memoir, Vance wrote that he felt different from other Yale Law students because of veteran status, economic class, cultural background and being the first person in his immediate family to attend college.

Burke told PolitiFact that Vance served on the Yale Veterans Association, which Burke called "an affinity group that is considered a DEI group" and said it "was doing DEI work to increase veteran enrollment."

Dan Driscoll, Vance’s law school friend whom Trump nominated as U.S. Army secretary, said in a 2024 interview with Frontline that Vance ran the Yale Veterans Association as a student and made incoming veterans feel welcome at the school.

"He took us out for pizza the first night before school started and basically said something along the lines of, ‘Hey, look, you're going to be self-conscious. You're going to be nervous. You're going to feel like you don't belong. You're going to feel like all these people are smarter than you. And it's just not true. And so if you can just kind of make it through these first couple of months, you'll settle in.’ That was really powerful to me," Driscoll said.