Reply to DEI at Michigan--NYT article

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Why are some people here taking the "rebuttal" (a blog post by a subject who comes off badly in the article) at face value as the Gospel truth? The Times article was extensively edited and fact checked. If we're assigning weights to things, it's probably more reliable.[/quote]

Did you read it?

NYT did not properly fact check. 
[/quote]

What are some wires it made besides cutting Heritage?[/quote]

*What are some errors it made besides citing Heritage?[/quote]

So you didn’t read the rebuttal? Start there. 
[/quote]

You mean the rebuttal from the DEI exec herself? Telling us all what a wonderful job she did? No conflict of interest there. How about an unbiased rebuttal?[/quote]

Did you read it? She presents facts. 
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Carefully selected facts. She is not going to evaluate herself honestly. Come on. If an outsider would like to speak up for her I would be much more interested but this is all CYA.[/quote]

Do you think it was ok for the NYT to omit the facts she presented?

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Do you realized that this is how it works? Facts are omitted on both sides to present the narrative you want to tell.[/quote]

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. 
 [/quote]

Sorry that you thought a rebuttal by DEI exec defending herself was some sort of mic drop moment.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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