DEI is dying in higher education, and in major businesses. To consider higher education first, an extensive article in today’s The New York Times Magazine describes the history of DEI at the University of Michigan. Written by Nicholas Confessore, an investigative reporter for The Times, the article’s title and subhead ably summarize one of its important discoveries.
The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong?
A decade and a quarter of a billion dollars later, students and faculty are more frustrated than ever.
If you have access to The Times Magazine, I urge you to read the article carefully. It covers Michigan’s experience with DEI thoroughly, and it goes into multiple ramifications of that effort, far more than I will mention here. Below is a segment near the opening of that article.
A decade ago, Michigan’s leaders set in motion an ambitious new D.E.I. plan, aiming “to enact far-reaching foundational change at every level, in every unit.” Striving to touch “every individual on campus,” as the school puts it, Michigan has poured roughly a quarter of a billion dollars into D.E.I. since 2016, according to an internal presentation I obtained. . . . Tens of thousands of undergraduates have completed bias training. Thousands of instructors have been trained in inclusive teaching.
The article also points out that DEI critics deplore that the program is strongly left-wing because it trains professors in “anti-racist pedagogy” and gives handouts on how to identify characteristics of white supremacy. The engineering school even promises a “pervasive education around issues of race, ethnicity, unconscious bias and inclusion.” And that, I ask, is what it takes to be a good engineer?
Michigan’s results? Not good!
Confessore writes, On campus, I met students with a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. Not one expressed any particular enthusiasm for Michigan’s D.E.I. initiative. Where some found it shallow, others found it stifling. They rolled their eyes at the profusion of course offerings that revolve around identity and oppression, the D.E.I.-themed emails they frequently received but rarely read.
Michigan’s own data suggests that in striving to become more diverse and equitable, the school has also become less inclusive: In a survey released in late 2022, students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging. Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics — the exact kind of engagement D.E.I. programs, in theory, are meant to foster.
So, what do you think? Did the University of Michigan spend that $250,000,000 wisely?
DEI is dying in businesses
Businesses also are retreating from DEI. For example, an article earlier this month in The Advocate by Trudy Ring, listed eight major companies that have stopped DEI programs (see here). It is important to note however, that a good number of individuals still favor the concepts of DEI, even if its implementation often bumps into financial problems in business just as it has in higher education.
I think it is fair to say that most businesses that have lowered their DEI efforts, or have abandoned them entirely, have done so for the simple reason that they have been losing customers and thus losing revenue.
If you have been following my blog for a while, you may recall that I’ve written about DEI a couple of times before, explaining why I consider it to be discriminatory and unfair. (See those posts here and here.). So, for me personally, I am pleased that DEI is dying.
Future topic?
On the other hand, and on another subject entirely, I continue to be DIS-pleased by the two major candidates for our highest office. At the moment, I judge neither to possess qualities suitable to be our president. So, as I’ve said here before, my question probably will become frustratingly simple. Whom will I vote against? I am so agitated that I may rouse myself to consider that worrying topic one more time on this site.
I think it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that DEI is discriminatory. I didn’t mention it in my post, but in a separate teaser drawing attention to the magazine article I summarized, the author of the piece raised an interesting question. Here is part of what he wrote in his teaser:
What went wrong at Michigan? One answer is that programs like Michigan’s are confused about whom — and what — D.E.I. is really for. The earliest versions were aimed at integrating Black students who began arriving on college campuses in larger numbers in the 1960s and 1970s. But in subsequent decades, as the Supreme Court whittled down the permissible scope of affirmative action programs, what began as a tool for racial justice turned into a program of educational enrichment: A core principle of D.E.I. now is that all students learn better in diverse environs.
That leaves D.E.I. programs less focused on the people they were originally conceived to help —
Please focus on what was said above. Here is my shorter version. The original beneficiaries were to be black students, but DEI is sold as an effort to benefit all students. I think it’s fair to say that the University of Michigan’s experience reveals DEI produced little palpable good. On the contrary, it has had an adverse effect on most college students and faculty. One final quote from this segment: As a result, many Black students at Michigan have grown cynical about the school’s promises and feel that D.E.I. has forgotten them.
Have there been any winners? One group profited, namely members of all bloated university DEI staffs.