DEI at Michigan--NYT article

[Anonymous]

The $250,000 million would be better spent in the schools in Detroit with concentrated reading classes and concentrated math classes to learn the basics of English and Math.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Malcolm X was right, guilt ridden UMC white libs are the worst. Always "whitesplaining" to us black "folk" cause it makes them "feels" good to be the white knight. As a black person reading some of these posts it's really something to behold.

Do you think racism exists in the US today?

If so, do you think it should be addressed? How?

Probably not by sending a bunch of emails and surveys to disaffected students again and again the way Michigan does.

You’re minimizing the work they’ve done over the last decade, including better representation in faculty.

You mean they've mau-maued the faculty into regularly hiring less qualified candidates and made everyone sign terroristic "diversity statements". Yeah good job.

[Anonymous]

Didn't earn it.

Didn't earn it.

Didn't earn it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't earn it.

Didn't earn it.

Didn't earn it.

What makes you think you earned it?

[Anonymous]

Spoiler: DEI programs have cost big money and yielded failing results everywhere. Michigan is a good place to frame this particular story but it could have been pretty much anywhere. I say this as someone who works in corporate America with extremely heavy-handed DEI training and lives in the Southern state with a truly dismaying number of Trump signs. The “news” that Michigan’s program has been an expensive mess would literally only be “news” or “investigative” to people in whatever Ann Arbor/Brooklyn/Berkeley NYT bubble that bought in hard in the first place and also haven’t understood or noticed the failures everywhere else. It really is true that conservative Republicans only wish they had invented and launched something so destructive to educated blue state voters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The $250,000 million would be better spent in the schools in Detroit with concentrated reading classes and concentrated math classes to learn the basics of English and Math.

So your recommendation is that the Michigan legislature should have somehow estimated how much the University of Michigan was spending out of its mostly private budget on DEI, reduced the state funding by that much each year, and given it only to Detroit Public Schools as supplemental money above the existing per pupil uniform state allowance?

Sounds like DeSantis policy to me.

Very unlikely that could actually be enacted, but if the R's were able to redirect a controversial funding stream, they would probably try to get the charter schools and religious schools in on the deal.

Don't forget Betsy DeVos is from Michigan.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The $250,000 million would be better spent in the schools in Detroit with concentrated reading classes and concentrated math classes to learn the basics of English and Math.

So your recommendation is that the Michigan legislature should have somehow estimated how much the University of Michigan was spending out of its mostly private budget on DEI, reduced the state funding by that much each year, and given it only to Detroit Public Schools as supplemental money above the existing per pupil uniform state allowance?

Sounds like DeSantis policy to me.

Very unlikely that could actually be enacted, but if the R's were able to redirect a controversial funding stream, they would probably try to get the charter schools and religious schools in on the deal.

Don't forget Betsy DeVos is from Michigan.

Absolutely should follow DeSantis’ lead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The $250,000 million would be better spent in the schools in Detroit with concentrated reading classes and concentrated math classes to learn the basics of English and Math.

So your recommendation is that the Michigan legislature should have somehow estimated how much the University of Michigan was spending out of its mostly private budget on DEI, reduced the state funding by that much each year, and given it only to Detroit Public Schools as supplemental money above the existing per pupil uniform state allowance?

Sounds like DeSantis policy to me.

Very unlikely that could actually be enacted, but if the R's were able to redirect a controversial funding stream, they would probably try to get the charter schools and religious schools in on the deal.

Don't forget Betsy DeVos is from Michigan.

Something I find curious is that civil rights law is heavily based on the concept of disparate impact. Even if something isn't "about race," it's illegal if it has a negative disparate impact on a protected class. IQ tests are mostly illegal in hiring, for example, because blacks tend to do less well on them.

But with DEI, everything has to be explicitly "about race" (or gender). You can't do things that would quietly disparately benefit black students, like say professionalize the lowest level math and English classes (where black students are disproportionately likely to end up) and ensuring that the curriculum allows students from those levels to complete reasonably challenging degrees. That would have been a good use of $250 million. Just for example.

I realize that race is a hard topic and sometimes it has to be in people's faces, but making DEI just about the in your face stuff (forced trainings, coerced diversity statements, high profile DEI hires, the grievance system) has left a bad taste in people's mouths and not accomplished much in terms of student outcomes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Malcolm X was right, guilt ridden UMC white libs are the worst. Always "whitesplaining" to us black "folk" cause it makes them "feels" good to be the white knight. As a black person reading some of these posts it's really something to behold.

Do you think racism exists in the US today?

If so, do you think it should be addressed? How?

Probably not by sending a bunch of emails and surveys to disaffected students again and again the way Michigan does.

You’re minimizing the work they’ve done over the last decade, including better representation in faculty.

You mean they've mau-maued the faculty into regularly hiring less qualified candidates and made everyone sign terroristic "diversity statements". Yeah good job.

Do you know what terrorism means? It takes like 10 minutes for a faculty applicant to write how they’ve mentored a student of color before. It’s not an unreasonable demand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Malcolm X was right, guilt ridden UMC white libs are the worst. Always "whitesplaining" to us black "folk" cause it makes them "feels" good to be the white knight. As a black person reading some of these posts it's really something to behold.

Do you think racism exists in the US today?

If so, do you think it should be addressed? How?

Probably not by sending a bunch of emails and surveys to disaffected students again and again the way Michigan does.

You’re minimizing the work they’ve done over the last decade, including better representation in faculty.

You mean they've mau-maued the faculty into regularly hiring less qualified candidates and made everyone sign terroristic "diversity statements". Yeah good job.

Do you know what terrorism means? It takes like 10 minutes for a faculty applicant to write how they’ve mentored a student of color before. It’s not an unreasonable demand.

Harvard and MIT thought it was an unreasonable demand, and ended the practice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Malcolm X was right, guilt ridden UMC white libs are the worst. Always "whitesplaining" to us black "folk" cause it makes them "feels" good to be the white knight. As a black person reading some of these posts it's really something to behold.

Do you think racism exists in the US today?

If so, do you think it should be addressed? How?

Probably not by sending a bunch of emails and surveys to disaffected students again and again the way Michigan does.

You’re minimizing the work they’ve done over the last decade, including better representation in faculty.

You mean they've mau-maued the faculty into regularly hiring less qualified candidates and made everyone sign terroristic "diversity statements". Yeah good job.

Do you know what terrorism means? It takes like 10 minutes for a faculty applicant to write how they’ve mentored a student of color before. It’s not an unreasonable demand.

Harvard dropped the forced Diversity Statements for new faculty hires. I'm sure other schools will follow and abandon the performative DEI nonsense if they haven't already. The NY Times putting the spotlight on the University of Michigan and how it squandered a quarter billion dollars with nothing to show for it will only accelerate the end of DEI in academia. It's done far more harm than good, not to mention the colossal waste of resources that could have been used elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay so takeaway is:

Michigan = bad
Don't let your kids apply to it.




Please

Right? As a Michigan parent, this is not going to matter. Michigan is still (like all the other top schools) going to be a huge prize. My kid is having the time of his life and getting a great education. People are always thrilled for him that he got in and is there. This article isn't changing anything.

He may be assumed to be a "DEI" grad by potential employers.

Yes, we lie awake nights concerned about our white, top grades, econ major kid being pigeon-holed in this manor.
But seriously, as others have posted, we have no regrets about part of the tuition money we've spent going to fund this experiment (if it even has - didn't see where the funds came from). Race relations in this country are fraught and complicated and Michigan is at least trying.

+1

I’ll take them doing something imperfectly over doing nothing.

What if what they are doing is making things worse?

This is like a medieval doctor deciding to bleed a patient because they are really sick and he has to do something…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Okay so takeaway is:

Michigan = bad
Don't let your kids apply to it.




Please

Right? As a Michigan parent, this is not going to matter. Michigan is still (like all the other top schools) going to be a huge prize. My kid is having the time of his life and getting a great education. People are always thrilled for him that he got in and is there. This article isn't changing anything.

He may be assumed to be a "DEI" grad by potential employers.

Yes, we lie awake nights concerned about our white, top grades, econ major kid being pigeon-holed in this manor.
But seriously, as others have posted, we have no regrets about part of the tuition money we've spent going to fund this experiment (if it even has - didn't see where the funds came from). Race relations in this country are fraught and complicated and Michigan is at least trying.

+1

I’ll take them doing something imperfectly over doing nothing.

What if what they are doing is making things worse?

This is like a medieval doctor deciding to bleed a patient because they are really sick and he has to do something…

What’s your solution?

[Anonymous]

I am re-reading the article.

"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"

And do we find it surprising that things got worse between the first survey in 2017 and the second survey marked 2021 and published 2022?

That's a pre-Covid to post-Covid, entire aftermath of George Floyd, storming the Capitol, time frame.

I live in Michigan. This is the first year since the pandemic that the high school teachers in my area seem kind of happy and optimistic that everything's going better than expected. And we are in a privileged suburb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Malcolm X was right, guilt ridden UMC white libs are the worst. Always "whitesplaining" to us black "folk" cause it makes them "feels" good to be the white knight. As a black person reading some of these posts it's really something to behold.

Do you think racism exists in the US today?

If so, do you think it should be addressed? How?

Probably not by sending a bunch of emails and surveys to disaffected students again and again the way Michigan does.

You’re minimizing the work they’ve done over the last decade, including better representation in faculty.

You mean they've mau-maued the faculty into regularly hiring less qualified candidates and made everyone sign terroristic "diversity statements". Yeah good job.

Do you know what terrorism means? It takes like 10 minutes for a faculty applicant to write how they’ve mentored a student of color before. It’s not an unreasonable demand.

Harvard and MIT thought it was an unreasonable demand, and ended the practice.

This is an incorrect read. They thought it was compelled speech.

An institution could force all of its faculty to walk for 5 minutes. That is not an unreasonable demand, but it is one that is unnecessary perhaps. Know what unreasonable means.