Intel Ends Funding for HBCU Legal Pipeline Amid Trump Deal

Intel Corp., whose new largest shareholder is the US government, isn’t renewing a partnership with North Carolina Central University’s law school that sought to increase the company’s pipeline of recruits from diverse groups.

Intel in 2021 helped create the Technology Law and Policy Center at NCCU, a historically Black university in Durham, North Carolina, through a $5 million donation spread across five years. The program has trained dozens of lawyers that have gone on to work at Intel, other companies, Big Law firms, and public service, according to the school’s website.

The Trump administration has aimed to remove diversity, equity, and inclusion programs as part of its oversight of recent deals, such as Skydance Media’s acquisition of Paramount Global, Verizon Communications Inc.’s purchase of Frontier Communications, and T-Mobile US Inc.'s bid to buy two companies.

Commerce Department Secretary Howard Lutnick has said the federal government will have no input into governance matters at Intel as part of its $8.9 billion investment for a 10% stake in the company.

Neither Intel nor NCCU would discuss a timeline for the company’s decision to end its law school sponsorship, or if there was a connection between its retreat from a notable DEI initiative and its recent deal with the Trump administration.

NCCU said in a statement to Bloomberg Law that it has received from Intel the “final round of funding” needed to run the TLPC. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a large law firm that earlier this year agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono legal services to the Trump administration, advised Intel on its agreement with the Commerce Department, which will see the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company pick up the government’s legal costs and expenses.

“While the formal partnership will not be extended, the Center will continue to foster innovation, drive critical conversations, and prepare students to thrive in the rapidly evolving tech landscape, as the university actively pursues new funding opportunities to sustain and expand its impact,” the school said.

Five sources familiar with Intel’s operations said it has reduced DEI-related activities. The company’s law department also has been hit hard by successive rounds of layoffs and retirements, thus lessening a need for a pipeline of new attorneys to fill a diminishing number of jobs and functions, the sources said.

A $1 million annual contribution to NCCU to finance the TLPC amid ongoing internal belt-tightening was also increasingly difficult to justify, particularly at a time when many public companies in the US have sought to shift the DEI conversation to less politically troublesome language, the sources said.

Intel’s chief legal officer April Miller Boise, who joined the company three years ago from Eaton Corp. and inherited the NCCU partnership from her predecessor, has previously been a supporter of the program.

“This collaboration is one step in creating opportunities for underrepresented students in law and policy,” she wrote in a LinkedIn post two years ago. “Now more than ever, it is critical to develop a pipeline of lawyers equipped with a solid understanding of technology and AI, and the impact law and policy will have on new technologies and their applications in society.”

The ‘Intel Rule’

As part of its NCCU program, Intel’s former general counsel Steven Rodgers—who retired in 2022—implemented the “Intel Rule,” a pledge by the company to only use outside counsel that were above average in certain DEI-related benchmarks, including equity partnership thresholds for women and minorities.

An extension of the Intel Rule awarded two summer associate positions at the company to a pair of first-year NCCU law students each year.

“We know that an inclusive workforce results in better products,” Rodgers said in a 2021 company interview with Rhonda Foxx, an attorney who was head of social equity policy and engagement at Intel. “Through this partnership, we hope to recalibrate the system and help build a curriculum and training experience that prepares law school graduates for careers in corporate practice.”

The Intel Rule is no longer company policy, said four sources familiar with the matter. Archived internet records show the final vestiges of the policy were removed from Intel’s website last year. The company ushered in a new CEO this year who is looking to turn around a once iconic chipmaker.

Intel has also made other changes. The company’s 2022 corporate social responsibility report includes the phrase “diversity and inclusion” more than 40 times. That same phrase doesn’t appear in Intel’s most recent iteration of the report from July, which only mentions “biodiversity.”

The Trump administration’s push to curtail DEI programs has targeted law firms and law schools. The American Bar Association, a trade group that through an independent council regulates US law schools, delayed a DEI-related mandate in May but has said it remains committed to diversity in the profession.

Some HBCUs like Howard University are also concerned about drawing the ire of the administration, particularly since many don’t have the deep pockets of other academic institutions looking to cut deals with the government.

Miller Boise said during her one-year anniversary at Intel that the company’s “commitment to DEI” was one of the reasons she came aboard. Five years ago she also co-founded the Black General Counsel 2025 Initiative, an affinity network dedicated to increasing from 5% to 10% the number of Black law departments leaders at Fortune 1000 companies.

The group, which had the support of some Big Law firms and functioned as more of an employment, mentorship, and networking platform than an advocacy organization, has won praise for its efforts in helping Black in-house lawyers land top legal jobs at some of the largest public companies.

The initiative’s website is no longer active, with its most recent hit on Aug. 6 yielding an error message, according to internet records.

Miller Boise and fellow co-founder Ernest Tuckett III, most recently an associate general counsel at VeriSign Inc., didn’t respond to requests for comment.