Students at North Carolina’s public universities can no longer be required to take classes related to diversity, equity and inclusion to graduate.

The University of Akron, citing changing state and federal guidance, will no longer host its “Rethinking Race” forum that it had held annually for more than two decades.

The University of Colorado took down its main D.E.I. webpage, and posted a new page for an Office of Collaboration.

Around the country, dozens of universities and colleges have begun to scrub websites and change programming in response to President Trump’s widening crusade against diversity and inclusion. But much remains unclear about the legality and reach of President Trump’s new orders.

So some schools are simply watching and waiting.

“It’s meant to create chaos in higher education, and in that it’s been successful,” said Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, of the attempts by President Trump to end D.E.I. activity on campuses. “The responses are all over the map.”

The president has signed several executive orders seeking to ban diversity practices across the federal government, educational institutions and private companies. The orders are sweeping in their language and scope. One demands that agencies and schools terminate D.E.I. offices, positions, action plans, grants and contracts. Another bans “gender ideology and discriminatory equity ideology” and threatens to withhold federal funding from schools that do not promote “patriotic” education.

Already, some orders have been challenged in court, and it remains to be seen how broadly the government will pursue institutions that it believes are using “illegal” preferences that “discriminate, exclude, or divide individuals based on race or sex.” An education secretary has not yet been confirmed; Linda McMahon, the nominee, will appear before a Senate committee on Thursday.

Administrators of K-12 institutions — which are more financially insulated — are making their own calculations. But in higher education, hundreds of millions in funding are on the line. University administrators are debating whether to freeze existing programs, stand on principle and resist, or try to fly below the radar while they see if the executive orders hold up in the courts.

At Princeton, for example, the president, Christopher Eisgruber, urged the community to “Keep Calm and Carry On,” until the legal status of the executive orders becomes more clear.

Meanwhile its athletics department posted a modified transgender athlete participation policy to comply with new N.C.A.A. rules, which changed because of President Trump’s order barring transgender athletes from women’s sports. Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania also removed references to transgender inclusion from their athletics websites.

At the University of Akron, administrators said that declining attendance and enthusiasm were additional reasons the school had stopped funding its Rethinking Race forum, which has been held every year since 1997. But programs for Black history month would continue, they said.

The American Association of University Professors is one of several organizations that has sued in federal court in an effort to block two executive orders related to diversity and inclusion.

The lawsuit charges that the executive orders violate the due process clause of the Constitution by failing to define terms like “D.E.I.,” “equity” and “illegal D.E.I.A.” The orders, it argues, also violate free speech and the separation of powers protections.

Still, the ambiguity in what diversity, equity and inclusion means has led some colleges to take a broad view as they seek to comply.

The University of North Carolina’s campus in Asheville, for example, had designated certain courses as “diversity intensive,” which meant they could be used to meet a diversity graduation requirement. On the list of classes that met the requirement were Appalachian Literature, Global Business, Developmental Psychology and Cultural Anthropology. They will still be offered, but will no longer be part of a requirement, said Brian Hart, a spokesman for the university.

Andy Wallace, a spokesman for the North Carolina system, said the system was assessing federal policy changes to ensure it would still receive funding. “This does not affect any course content,” he said. “It suspends any requirements for D.E.I.-focused courses as a condition of graduation.”

Beth Moracco, chair of the faculty at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said the university’s actions were worrisome.

“My concern is that these types of directives and memos will have a chilling effect in terms of discussions in the classroom and faculty developing new courses,” she said, “even if there’s not a direct effect of eliminating courses at this time.”

At Michigan State, administrators canceled a Lunar New Year lunch, and then apologized for the overreaction and rescheduled it, according to emails from the school posted online by Bridge Michigan, a nonprofit news source. A university spokeswoman said that its College of Communication Arts and Sciences canceled the event without consulting the broader university; about 70 people showed up for the rescheduled event on Tuesday.

Mr. Trump’s orders follow a yearslong push by state level Republicans to roll back diversity programs. Twelve states, including Texas and Florida, have passed laws targeting D.E.I., and legislation has been considered or introduced in more than a dozen other states.

More than 240 colleges in 36 states have eliminated some aspects of their programming, including diversity offices or race-based affinity groups, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which has been tracking changes in diversity policies since January 2023.

Most of those moves happened before Mr. Trump’s recent order, however, and it remains unclear how the flurry of action during his first weeks in office will affect schools over the long term, especially in K-12 districts.

So far, few public schools seem to be rushing to change their practices. School districts are less reliant on federal funds than universities are, with 90 percent of their funding coming from state and local taxes. And the nation’s 13,000 districts have always had broad autonomy to set their own curriculum and teaching policies.

The Trump administration has launched investigations into at least two K-12 districts — Denver Public Schools and the Ithaca City School District in New York. Denver is under investigation for transforming one girl’s bathroom at a high school into a nonbinary bathroom, according to the Education Department. Ithaca is under investigation for hosting a series of conferences for students of color, some of which may not have been open for white students to attend, according to the Equal Protection Project, an advocacy group that filed a federal civil rights complaint against the school system.

Yet Denver is still directing educators to a detailed “L.G.B.T.Q.+ Tool Kit” that lays out policies for affirming students who are questioning their gender identities, giving those students access to the bathrooms of their choice and helping them change their names in the district’s computer systems.

And in Ithaca, despite scrutiny on the district’s practices around race, the school system’s website continues to feature a page touting an “anti-marginalization” curriculum. It is intended to aid students “in their development of anti-racist understandings and practices” — language that could run afoul of the president’s executive orders.

Ithaca City Schools did not respond to interview requests.

In a written statement, a spokesman for Denver’s public schools said that before making any “final decisions” about policy changes, the district was awaiting further federal guidance. He added that the district “remains committed to our values including providing a safe and inclusive learning environment to all students.”

Some Democratic education leaders have bluntly stated that they did not intend to change their practices in response to Mr. Trump. When it comes to issues of gender and sexual orientation, “California law is unaffected by recent changes to federal policy,” said Tony Thurmond, the state schools superintendent.

In New York, the state education department released a statement calling Mr. Trump’s actions “ineffective” and “antithetical” to the history of federal education policy, which has traditionally sought to protect racial minorities, sexual minorities, students with disabilities and other groups.

“We denounce the intolerant rhetoric of these orders,” the state agency said. “Our children cannot thrive in an environment of chaos; they need steady and stable leadership that we will endeavor to provide.”

Perhaps the biggest impact in education has occurred in the schools that the federal government controls more directly: those for children who live on military bases and the military’s officer academies.

The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has declared that official celebrations of events like Black History Month are no longer welcome. The defense department’s K-12 schools have ended some clubs, options for children to use the bathrooms that align with their gender identities and are combing shelves for books with themes related to diversity, according to reporting by Stars and Stripes.

The United States Military Academy at West Point disbanded 12 student affinity groups while investigating whether they complied with the administration’s D.E.I. directives.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president and chief executive of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, which is also suing the Trump administration to overturn the D.E.I. orders, said the new policies would most likely have a broad chilling effect, despite their ambiguity.

“And that chilling effect is, I think, extending whether you are in a red state, a blue state, in anything in between,” she said. “No institution wants to become a target.”

It was a dream come true for Philadelphia children when the Eagles soared to a Super Bowl victory Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs. Now they’re getting a second wish granted: a day off school to celebrate with the champions at the city’s Super Bowl parade.

The School District of Philadelphia said on Tuesday that it would close all of its schools on Friday, freeing up nearly 200,000 students to join what is expected to be a million-strong crowd flooding the city’s streets. Nearly 20,000 school staff members will also get the day off.

“We look forward to joyfully celebrating the Eagles’ victory as a community,” the district announced, in what might be a formal way of saying, “Go Birds!”

The parade will travel through Center City, starting at 11 a.m. at Lincoln Financial Field, heading north past City Hall and ending by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, according to the city’s map of the route.

Parents face the decision of whether to bring their children to a parade that could involve, in some sections, standing shoulder to shoulder with strangers in temperatures expecting to hover in the 30s. Others might opt to take an impromptu vacation, as Philadelphia schools will also be closed on Monday for Presidents’ Day, giving students a four-day weekend.

Social media was buzzing with opinions and recommendations about the parade, ranging from optimists booking Airbnbs near the stadium to cautious parents advising others to leave their children at home with a sitter.

Philadelphia’s public safety officials issued some precautions for parents who planned to bring children to the parade: make sure they are wearing bright colors; snap a photo of them before leaving; and write their phone number on a bracelet, on their wrist or on a piece of paper in their pocket, in case child and parent get separated.

Other educational institutions around Philadelphia jumped on the bandwagon: Temple University and nearby school districts like Gloucester City School District, in South Jersey, and Ridley School District, in Delaware County, all canceled classes. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia Schools, which oversees Catholic schools in the city and its suburbs, also announced that its high schools, parish and regional elementary schools would be closed.

Transit officials said that there would be limited train service starting from early morning and congestion in the roads because of the street closures. City officials also said that government offices, city daytime centers and courts would also be shut.

The timing of the parade, falling on Valentine’s Day, drew some grumbling from restaurant and flower shop owners in the city, some of whom complained the parade would affect their dinner service and deliveries. Mayor Cherelle Parker of Philadelphia sought to calm those concerns at a news conference on Tuesday.

“To all in our restaurant community, we want you to know that we will be prepared,” she told reporters. “Nothing will interfere with our restaurant reservations on that evening. We will be done well before you are to appear for dinner. So don’t you dare touch any of those reservations.”

Philadelphia’s school district also closed in 2018 for the celebration of the Eagles’ first Super Bowl victory, against the New England Patriots.

Schools were closed during last year’s Super Bowl parade, in Kansas City, Mo., after Kansas City won against the San Francisco 49ers. A shooting at that parade left one person dead and about two dozen others wounded, including nine children.

The Education Department placed a number of employees across its offices on administrative leave on Friday, part of a wave of what staff members and union representatives say are dozens of suspensions at the agency in the Trump administration’s purge of diversity efforts.

In letters obtained by The New York Times, the department notified affected employees that they would lose access to their email accounts, but would continue to receive pay for an indefinite period.

The department cited guidance from the Office of Personnel Management, which had directed agencies to submit plans for shedding staff associated with diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by the end of the day on Friday.

Brittany Holder, a spokeswoman for the American Federation of Government Employees, said the union estimated that at least 50 department employees had been suspended.

The range of people affected led several of those who had been placed on leave to conclude that they had been ensnared in a governmentwide effort to stamp out diversity initiatives, despite what they described as little more than superficial contact with mentors offering general coaching on workplace inclusivity.

The move was an early indication that Trump officials had begun looking to root out any D.E.I. efforts believed to be conducted “in disguise” after they had already moved to shutter offices explicitly focused on those efforts earlier in the week. It came as dozens of agencies raced to comply with an order issued by President Trump on his first day in office directing them to dismantle diversity offices and remove staff affiliated with them.

But according to interviews with those placed on leave and people familiar with the notifications, the department appeared to have cast a wide net, suspending people whose job titles and official duties had no connection to D.E.I., and whose only apparent exposure to D.E.I. initiatives came in the form of trainings encouraged by their managers. One of the training workshops that employees speculated may have led to their being flagged took place more than nine years ago.

It was not immediately clear what criteria the department used to identify those placed on leave, or which of those employees’ activities might fall under the broad order issued by Mr. Trump to roll back D.E.I. initiatives across the federal government. The Office of Personnel Management memo laying out the purge of diversity programs last month called on employees to report any efforts to “disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language.”

A spokesman for the department did not respond to requests for comment.

Subodh Chandra, a civil rights lawyer who is representing one of the staff members placed on leave in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, said his client was “utterly baffled” by the move. The staff member, a West Point graduate and an army veteran, was appointed to the employment, engagement and diversity and inclusion council formed under Mr. Trump’s previous administration by his political appointees, Kimberly Richey and Kenneth Marcus. A former prosecutor, he has received “perfect” ratings in the last three evaluations, Mr. Chandra said, in his role overseeing a two-state regional office.

The committee continued under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., but it has not met since December, Mr. Chandra said, and certainly not since Mr. Trump took office.

“My client served his country with distinction in the U.S. Army during and after 9/11,” Mr. Chandra said. “He happens to be a white male, although that shouldn’t make any difference, whether he or anyone else is a victim of a McCarthyist witch hunt. He should not be a victim of retaliation for opposing discrimination against anyone. And I hope the administration will stop misguided persecution of those serving our country faithfully. We are contemplating all of our legal remedies.”

Another staff member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of their tenuous position, said that diversity trainings were seen as routine around the department, with one two-day session having drawn around 300 people over several years.

Several staff members said that Denise L. Carter, who was named acting education secretary until Mr. Trump’s nominee to lead the department is confirmed, had urged colleagues to attend sessions, offering them at no cost to participants as recently as last year.

The recipients of the letters giving notice of suspensions included staff members who worked in the department’s Federal Student Aid office and others in the civil rights office. The department also notified all employees in the civil rights office who had joined recently and were still in a probationary period that their positions would be reviewed to determine their necessity.

The letters told employees that the decision to place them on leave was “not being done for any disciplinary purpose,” and was “pursuant to the president’s executive order.” But they did not specify how long the leave would last, or why those employees had been identified for suspension.

Through its first two weeks, the Trump administration has repeatedly said it would temporarily pause certain programs and sideline some federal workers while it conducts more comprehensive reviews that could inform staff reductions and bureaucratic changes. But it has done so haphazardly, leading to unintended disruptions and stoking anxiety among many federal workers.