University of Michigan Keeps DEI Program Alive
The University of Michigan’s Board of Regents failed to vote on whether or not to defund its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program but decided that diversity statements are no longer required, NBC News reports.
The board failed to openly say if it would not vote on dismantling the DEI program after spending $250 million on diversity initiatives since 2016. However, diversity statements for faculty members — hired or promoted — would no longer be required. While there has been speculation on the program being canceled, board member Michael Behm warns people to be careful with what they read on the internet. “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet,” Behm said.
“There are no plans to make any cuts to these programs.”
Over 500 students, faculty, and staff gathered on campus on Dec. 5 to protest the program’s potential cancellation. As word got out that the board did not vote, students turned their attention to the decision over diversity statements. “We’ve seen it all over the nation. DEI has been added to the long list of dog whistles and buzzwords that many bureaucrats are now too scared to touch,” student Yasin Lowe said.
“Many have DEI completely wrong, instilling terror and fear for a reason I must attribute to ignorance at best, malice at worst.”
Other students, like Nicholas Love, challenged the institution to look at “who it serves, who it excludes, who it claims to be and create a model where we are consistently improving access to education and prosperity.” However, some board members are eager to get rid of DEI in Michigan, claiming the money could be used for students instead. “It is my hope that our efforts in D.E.I. focus on redirecting funding directly to students and away from a bloated administrative bureaucracy,” Mark Bernstein said, according to Fox News.
Michigan’s Black students look at the school’s DEI initiatives as a failure, calling efforts “superficial” and portraying “a general discomfort with naming Blackness explicitly.” A spokesperson for the school’s Black Student Union, Princess-J’Maria Mboup, said: “The students that are most affected by D.E.I. — meaning marginalized communities — are invested in the work, but not in D.E.I. itself.”
Prior to being elected as the 47th President of the United States, Donald Trump pledged to pull back on DEI at colleges receiving federal funding. Schools like Texas and Florida have banned DEI programs at their state-funded universities. At Michigan, physics professor Keith Riles hopes for the elimination of all DEI programs, calling them “discriminatory” along with the Black Lives Matter Movement being a “grift.”
In 2022, The New York Times revealed a report finding that “students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging.”
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