The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor has one of higher education’s most extensive commitments to recruiting and retaining students and faculty from a variety of racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, a distinction that’s won it both admiration from beleaguered diversity leaders and criticism from a growing chorus of DEI critics. That includes a scathing almost 10,000-word magazine article published in The New York Times in October, scrutinizing the price and effectiveness of the university’s efforts.
But a report circulated Wednesday among Faculty Senate leaders suggests that the Board of Regents may be planning significant cuts in diversity, equity, and inclusion programming as early as next month. The faculty leaders are planning a series of meetings to push back against the changes they fear are coming.
A letter, written by Rebekah Modrak, the Faculty Senate chair and a professor in the School of Art and Design, warns of “impending threats to the University of Michigan’s DEI programming and core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Diversity and inclusion efforts are infused across the university, with more than 200 people assigned at least part-time to those roles. Since the strategy was rolled out in 2016, the university has spent more than $250 million on a variety of programs, with each of its 49 schools, colleges, and campus units pursuing their own plans. The expansive reach that’s made it a model for other universities has also made it a target of conservative activists who see a giant bureaucracy trying to impose liberal views on the campus.
Multiple sources have confirmed, the faculty letter stated, that the regents held a private meeting earlier this month “with a small subgroup of central leadership members, and among the topics discussed was the future of DEI at UM, including possibly defunding DEI in the next fiscal year.
“They held this discussion without the chief diversity officer, the administrator with the greatest expertise in the subject, data about the programming, and understanding of its operation within the university,” the letter continued. “With seemingly no interest in accessing evidence about the successes or challenges of the program, the regents cannot understand what DEI encompasses.”
Tabbye M. Chavous, Michigan’s chief diversity officer and vice provost for equity and inclusion, did not respond to requests for comment.
The faculty letter expressed concern that the regents are considering changes that go beyond the board’s charge of financial oversight of the university. The changes they’re reportedly contemplating would “encroach upon our educational and research missions, negatively impacting students, staff, and faculty and the core values of the university — with those decisions based on politics and personal animus.”
The board, the letter states, conflates the pro-Palestinian protests that have roiled the campus since last spring with its diversity efforts. “Without identifying particular problems with DEI, they have charged the president (who has then asked executive vice presidents) to come up with a plan to defund or ‘restructure’” the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the letter states.
Kay Jarvis, a campus spokeswoman, did not respond to questions about whether the regents’ meeting Modrak first described in The Michigan Daily had taken place or whether the board had been discussing the future of DEI.
Instead, she wrote,“The University of Michigan has a rich history of cultivating a diverse, equitable and inclusive community. We remain strongly committed to fostering a culturally and intellectually rich campus community and working environment, both of which are fundamental to a world-class education and to research and innovations that have a positive impact on society.”
The enrollment and recruiting challenges that Michigan and other universities across the country are up against are daunting. Michigan has struggled mightily to diversify its student and employee ranks, with activists demanding that they do so more aggressively to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse state. The high-school age population in Michigan has plummeted, and inequities across school systems make recruiting academically qualified students from low-income neighborhoods more challenging.
The chair of the Board of Regents, Sarah Hubbard, did not respond to requests for comment. Hubbard, a Republican, responded to a Washington Post editorial criticizing diversity statements in academic hiring by posting on X that she was “looking into it” at the university. “Diversity is a laudable goal but stifling others opinions to get there is troubling,” she wrote.
The letter circulated on Wednesday urged faculty members to attend a series of meetings to push back against any cuts in diversity programming, and to show up at the regents’ next scheduled meeting on December 5, when Modrak suggested changes might be announced.
Regents, she wrote, have used the New York Times magazine piece as evidence of DEI’s failures. The article concluded that the university had built up one of the nation’s most ambitious diversity bureaucracies “only to see increased discord and division on campus.” It reported that, despite the nearly $250 million spent on DEI efforts since 2016, enrollment among Black undergraduates had barely budged and the changes had fueled “a culture of grievance.”
The faculty letter linked to Chavous’s public response, which charged that the article was “filled with misinformation, disinformation, and sadly, sexism” and ignored examples of how the university’s DEI efforts have helped expand socioeconomic, as well as racial diversity.
The faculty letter agreed with Chavous, arguing the article featured a “cherry-picked selection of educator-student vignettes seemed designed to enrage readers’ fears of ‘cancel culture’ and academia, while having little to do with extensive DEI programming.” It cited the Go Blue Guarantee, which offers four years of free tuition for qualified students from low-income families, and the Collegiate Fellowship Program, which recruits early-career academics with demonstrated commitments to diversity through teaching, research, and service.
Derek Peterson, a professor of history and African studies, teaches a class in African literature in the $10-million Trotter Multicultural Center, which opened in 2019 as a signature achievement of the university’s strategic diversity plan.
“About three-quarters of the class are students of color, either from first-generation families from Africa or from communities here,” mostly in Michigan, he said in an interview. “Many of them would not be here if it weren’t for the Go Blue Guarantee,” which, he said, provides “a ladder out of poverty” to students of all races from across Michigan.
Partial or sweeping cuts in those programs, Modrak wrote, would hurt first-generation students, those from diverse racial, ethnic, and religious backgrounds, people with disabilities, and veterans.
Germine Awad, a professor of psychology, said she was “shocked and confused” by the reports. “DEI are part of the core values of the University of Michigan and are integrated in every aspect of its functioning,” she said in an interview Thursday. “It’s hard to pinpoint what programs are considered DEI because it was designed to be inclusive of the entire university community.” Data that’s been collected thus far, she said, shows that these efforts have made the campus more reflective of the state’s population, and more welcoming to all students.
A June 2023 Chronicle analysis of the changes instituted at Michigan since 2016 found that the university, which was doubling down on its commitment to diversity initiatives even as other universities were backing off theirs, has some successes to show for it. The university has hired more faculty and staff of color, increased the number of students from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and incorporated more readings across the curricula that reflect the perspectives of people of color, women, and other underrepresented groups.
Still, in 2021, fewer students reported being satisfied with the campus climate than those surveyed in 2016. And even as the university’s enrollment has grown, Black undergraduates remained vastly underrepresented — making up fewer than 5 percent of enrollment in a state where 14 percent of the population is Black.
In an interview last year, Chavous said that, being in a state with a Democratic governor where there had been no legislative efforts to ban diversity and equity initiatives, she had the relative freedom and responsibility to speak out. “We’re only an election away from things changing,” she acknowledged at the time. “We’re not immune from those dynamics.”
Less than a year later, Michigan voters narrowly favored incoming president Donald J. Trump in the 2024 presidential election. Eliminating DEI has been a cornerstone of his higher-education agenda.
