DEI at Michigan--NYT article
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Anonymous
Right. And she called out the facts that were blatantly omitted. Do you think they should have been included? Or maybe are you good with the narrative that the NYT was crafting. |
Anonymous
Sorry that you thought a rebuttal by DEI exec defending herself was some sort of mic drop moment. |
Anonymous
One of the more salient points was that the DEI funding covered scholarship money for low-income students of all races. That alone has to account for a substantial fraction of the $250M in spending. I swagged it at about $160M based on one annual funding estimate I found for one year x 8 years. My kid attends Michigan and I live about an hour away. I am seeing the DEI office's sponsorship listed on presentations that are of interest to me. Most recently one about how the U.S. Census's definition of the Middle East has evolved over time. The kind of topics that are worthy of academic consideration. In the recent 2024 general election, Ann Arbor's county went 70% Harris, 70% female (winning) Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin, and 70% female (winning) Congressional Rep Debbie Dingell. (Although Trump support increased vs. prior elections.) Suffice it to say that within Ann Arbor there is a constituency for what the DEI initiatives address. I personally think the University has directed their managers to lay low. First not to fight fire with fire in a tense time that was before the election. And second because reasons and facts are not very important to DEI opponents anyway. As you can see if you look at fact-checker reporting - if you don't believe that, re-fact-check it for yourself...quite possible with the whole internet at your disposal. Trump is a falsehood machine and his allies follow suit. It's unbelievable to me as someone that grew up Republican. Right now, in my opinion, the biggest DEI type issues on campus relate to the Israel-Gaza situation. What's going on with a more secondary administrative effort like a DEI 2.0 initiative is a sidebar to making sure there are not violence outbreaks on campus. This is truly a local issue due to the large Detroit metro Middle Eastern & Muslim community as well as the size of the U of M's Jewish community. Trump's 2016 victory led to several clear nationally-publicized hate speech incidents in my kids' Michigan school district. That's what kicked off our local DEI initiatives. It's taken a long time for those to become productive (that's the truth). But they aren't very expensive and I'm seeing some positive signs. And certainly majority people are thinking harder and more carefully about how they treat people and what lesson plans actually contain. So, I'm fine with how Michigan DEI 2.0 is going. As a market researcher, I believe the background social conditions have been worsening and that is outside the University's control. Those of you who are anti-DEI don't have any skin in this game and are not bringing anything besides reiterating what you (maybe) read in one article. And some vague complaints about being a US taxpayer. I know I can't convince you but your arguments are unimpressive and you don't seem to have any local connections. |
Anonymous
One problem with the current extremism is that it makes troubleshooting. When our system is working, the loyal opposition gives the other side 1980s-style Washington Monthly reality checks. Now, we get woke bashing vs. billionaire bashing. |
Anonymous
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Michigan alum here. I was troubled by two things. First, the account of what happened with the dean of the law school not putting out a statement when George Floyd was murdered. This is told in a vacuum and does not describe the context, including: a law school faculty that had only 1-2 Black professors, a Dean who had his own insensitivities and who allegedly created a hostile work environment for one of the Black professors (pleadings can be found on line).
Second, the account of the professor who had put a preemptive “apology” for “soft sexism” and referencing 1960s views of housewives. That the journalist found this to be a sincere “apology” and not an offensive set up is pretty sad. If I were a woman student in the class, I would probably have dropped it. I also thought the constant references to the marital status of the Chief Diversity Officer to be very strange. If he was trying to imply something nefarious he should identify facts that would lead to that conclusion. All of that made me doubt the other claims in the article. |
Anonymous
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$250 Million. Wow?
Youu could literally the HBCUs afloat with that kind of money. |
Anonymous
Actually no. That $250M was spent over 8 years. And earlier in the thread there are comparisons to the U of M overall budget. Howard alone receives about $200M per year from the federal government as an appropriated support amount. That's a good chunk of its budget but not a majority. https://thedig.howard.edu/all-stories/howard-works-meet-operating-expenses-face-unprecedented-inflation#:~:text=As%20a%20federally%20chartered%20HBCU,appropriation%20in%20fiscal%20year%202022. It seems like the money might be enough to run only Morehouse for two years. There are more than 100 HBCUs with estimated 228K students. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp/compliance-assistance/outreach/hbcu-initiative/about#:~:text=Historically%20Black%20Colleges%20and%20Universities,-HBCUs%20were%20founded&text=Specifically%2C%20HBCUs%20were%20created%20with,more%20than%20228%2C000%20students%20enrolled. Big numbers are pretty mind-blowing, I get that. But the math's not mathing on the PP's statement. |
Anonymous
Sure. PPs math is an exaggeration but the sentiment that it would have been better spent as a donation to HCBUs isn’t so easily dismissed. |
Anonymous
Wild exaggerations are not o.k. no matter what the current political times are. There is no feasible way or logical reason for U of M's budget money (including scholarship money for in-state students) to be spent on HBCUs. Throwaway "it would be better if" statements are not useful discourse unless grounded in reality. I might think it better if I had control over your household income and could direct it to the institutions I choose. But that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Also, DEI is not a code word for exclusively African American oriented initiatives. Some may think that, but universities have many constituencies depending on their local communities. If you go back to the original article, the student leaders interviewed seem to be making the case that the University is not doing enough for their taste/not succeeding. So I wonder if they would advocate for less money to be spent or more. |
Anonymous
For conservative white men like Ed Blum, yes it most certainly is |
Anonymous
You have no idea what it was since you didn’t read it. |
Anonymous
If you don't get the point or don't want to, just say so. $250 million is an obscene amount of money to waste on something as stupid as DEI. Working class Michiganders are making hard decisions about keeping body and soul together and the state university is wasting money on this crap. This is why trump won. |
Anonymous
Like the people who stopped reading the NYT article a few paragraphs in when they saw something they didn’t like? Hm. |
Anonymous
Remember you said this when people start flipping out with wild exaggerations about trump.
Michigan has zero HBCUs. Maybe turn this school into a HBCU state school wwith that money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pensole_Lewis_College_of_Business_and_Design
DEI is a code word for really stupid ways to waste money. The pendulum is swinging back and we will hopefully see educational institutions focusing on education. There is a role for DEI in higher education but it shouldn't be driving the bus like it is. |
Anonymous
So your local kids can turn down the free four year scholarship at U of M and maybe go for free to a directional school instead? Look how high the income limits go!!! If you're really working class, then your family/friends/neighborhood kids would be eligible. Again for the people who only read the last page, PP is partially arguing against scholarship money for in-state students. I'm going to leave the Trump comment alone. It's badly off-topic. |