In ideal conditions, on its own terms, the DEI project was a massive failure. It’s time to learn from this and end the DEI experiment for good.
In ideal conditions, on its own terms, the DEI project was a massive failure. It’s time to learn from this and end the DEI experiment for good.
T he university advises professors to address “characteristics of white supremacy culture” in their teaching, such as “worship of the written word.”
The entire law-school faculty is urged to attend a training session that covers “gender identity” and “preferred pronouns.” The presenters at this session suggest that faculty ask students about their “attractionality.”
The university quadruples the size of the office dedicated to investigating so-called bias incidents. This office subjects an art professor to an investigation for requiring students to copy a cartoon that a handful of students found offensive.
These instances represent only a few examples of the University of Michigan’s embrace of the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) agenda.
Perhaps no university in the entire country implemented DEI as extensively as Michigan. Since 2016, Michigan has spent around a quarter of a billion dollars on DEI. According to a 2021 report from the Heritage Foundation, Michigan employed 163 staff members in DEI positions, by far the largest DEI workforce of the universities studied for the report.
Now, in a deeply reported article for the New York Times Magazine, Nicholas Confessore reveals the abject failure of Michigan’s DEI efforts.
As Confessore reports, “Michigan’s own data suggests that in striving to become more diverse and equitable, the school has also become less inclusive.” A 2021 student and faculty survey conducted by Michigan showed that participants thought the campus climate was less positive than in previous years, before the current DEI efforts. Students reported that they interacted less with people of different races and religions.
And Michigan joined a cowardly group of elite campuses in failing to adequately respond to the sickening antisemitism that swept through universities following the October 7 attacks on Israel. Michigan community members reported dozens of instances of antisemitic discrimination to the university’s DEI bureaucracy. The university investigated and reported on only one of these incidents.
The DEI apparatus harasses an art professor for showing an illustration that makes a few students uncomfortable. Jews subjected to swastikas drawn on benches outside Michigan’s Hillel, in contrast, are out of luck.
At Michigan, DEI failed in what should have been ideal conditions. Michigan spared no expense in committing to DEI, creating a giant bureaucratic vanguard that was supposed to usher in a new era of belonging and equity. But the DEI crusade literally led to the opposite of its promises, resulting in a climate of distrust, fear, and discrimination.
Amazingly, these failures haven’t resulted in soul-searching among the DEI boosters at Michigan. While other elite campuses were rethinking some aspects of DEI, such as diversity statements that compelled faculty applicants to endorse the DEI agenda, Michigan doubled down on the practice. According to an internal Michigan report obtained by Confessore, ending diversity statements “would be seen as a capitulation to the winds of political expediency.”
When asked why, despite Michigan’s enormous investment in DEI, surveys showed that students felt less included than in previous years, the head of DEI for the university, Tabbye Chavous, responded that DEI programs had taught students to expect more from the school. “Raising an awareness of an inequality, raising awareness of something that someone wasn’t aware of can elicit feelings,” Chavous said. “It can elicit anger or displeasure.”
In other words, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Even before Confessore’s blockbuster report, it should have been obvious that DEI was doomed to fail.
The ideology behind DEI teaches that American society is a rigged system in which the “oppressors” — white people, men, and/or “cisgender” individuals — use law, culture, and institutions to subjugate the “oppressed”: “minoritized” persons, women, and/or “transgender” individuals. Pursuing “social justice” requires ceaseless struggle against these unjust structures. So the highest calling one can pursue is that of an activist who seeks to tear down the oppressive order.
Given this Manichean worldview, is it any wonder that college students are anxious, distrustful, and fearful of interacting with people unlike themselves? The head of DEI at Michigan’s school of social work observed that students wanted to be able to talk with one another about controversial issues but didn’t know how to because “we’ve never seen it.”
Furthermore, the DEI account of American society encourages students to identify with or become allies for the “oppressed.” Instead of teaching students at Michigan to be grateful for their enormous privileges — the opportunity to learn at one of the most prestigious universities in the world, the chance to receive a college degree that will likely give them an income advantage over those without a degree, and the blessing of living in a country whose Constitution guarantees individual rights — DEI teaches students that they are victims of a structurally bigoted society. Instead of approaching their college education with joy, relishing the chance to engage with big ideas, significant historical figures, and great works of art, students are taught to see only the oppressive structures holding them down.
Instead of cultivating an informed patriotism that appreciates the greatness of this country while acknowledging its failures and shortcomings, the DEI university entirely neglects this virtue of gratitude.
The case of Michigan shows that DEI doesn’t just fail to meet its objectives. It leads to poorer outcomes on campus. If universities will not end this failed experiment voluntarily, the overseers of these institutions must do it for them.
Fortunately, the Goldwater Institute, where I work, has developed a suite of reforms that can end the DEI regime for good and restore universities to their core teaching and research missions.
Already adopted in Texas, Iowa, and several other states, Goldwater’s Abolish DEI Bureaucracies legislation prohibits discriminatory and wasteful DEI offices and practices like those at Michigan. This reform clearly defines DEI as particular discriminatory initiatives, such as “any effort to promote differential treatment of or provide special benefits to individuals on the basis of race, color, or ethnicity.” This specificity prevents universities from sidestepping the requirements of the legislation by simply renaming or reorganizing DEI offices. The reform also prohibits diversity statements in hiring and admissions.
But going after DEI offices and programs is not enough. Confessore reports that students at Michigan “rolled their eyes at the profusion of course offerings that revolve around identity and oppression.” Michigan, of course, is not alone in having a ubiquity of DEI-laden courses. According to a recent study by Speech First, 67 percent of major universities require students to take DEI courses as a condition of graduation. Such courses force students to endure lectures on “microaggressions,” “intersectionality,” and “whiteness.”
These courses have a clear activist agenda, and students should not need to sit through this indoctrination just to graduate.
Goldwater’s Freedom from Indoctrination Act prohibits politicized DEI requirements like these. Furthermore, it prevents universities from compelling professors, in a clear violation of academic freedom, to include DEI content in their courses. And the Freedom from Indoctrination Act requires public universities’ general-education programs to provide basic instruction in important elements of the American system of self-government, including the Constitution, the separation of powers, freedom of speech, and landmark Supreme Court cases.
Leaders at Michigan conducted their DEI experiment in ideal conditions. No expense was spared. No forceful opposition frustrated their efforts. And despite setbacks, leaders continued to up the ante by pouring even more resources into DEI.
Nevertheless, on its own terms, the DEI project was a massive failure.
It is time for the American people, through their elected representatives, to end the failed DEI experiment for good and restore public universities to their core missions: the pursuit of truth and the education of citizens.