We answer some of the most common questions about DEI offices
Politicians in states like Florida and Texas have suggested that chief diversity officers oversee vast bureaucracies of people and programs intent on indoctrinating students and employees with liberal ideas. Meanwhile, others describe them as under-supported but critically important administrators working to make everyone on campus feel welcome and valued. With proposed funding cuts and restrictive laws on the line, many DEI chiefs worry their very existence is being threatened.
To help make sense of such dueling perspectives, here are five questions and answers about chief diversity officers, starting with the basics:
What do chief diversity officers do?
Their role includes ensuring that diversity, equity, and inclusion remain key priorities across all departments and operations. It helps that they often work in the provost’s office, reporting directly to the president.
The diversity leader works with various groups to make sure that all students, faculty, and staff are treated fairly and feel supported. This might include responding to complaints about gender and pay inequity, disability discrimination, and sexual harassment. If the college doesn’t already have a comprehensive campuswide DEI strategy, the diversity leader might be asked to come up with one to help recruit and retain students, faculty and staff, especially those from underserved backgrounds.
Sometimes, they help departments with diversity statements that prospective employees and promotion candidates are asked to submit, showing their commitment to supporting students from a variety of backgrounds. And often, chief diversity officers oversee training sessions for new faculty, staff, and students, as well as multicultural events on campus. “They’re also responsible for assessing the ways that a campus climate and culture either supports or acts as barriers to the success of students, faculty, and staff,” says Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (Nadohe).
How has the role evolved on college campuses?
Since the national focus on this position has intensified in the last several years, it’s tempting to think of the diversity leader as a response to the Black Lives Matter movement, or more specifically, to the police killings of unarmed Black men like Michael Brown and George Floyd.
But the job predates those deaths by decades. On college campuses, it grew out of minority and multicultural affairs positions in the late 1960s and 1970s that were focused largely on hiring more diverse faculty and staff and enrolling and retaining more students of color.
Recent events have prompted more campuses to elevate diversity chiefs to cabinet-level positions. Nadohe’s membership has tripled since July 2020, right after Floyd’s murder, Granberry Russell says. Race isn’t the only kind of diversity these officers pay attention to. They’re also working to enhance a sense of belonging for LGBTQ, veteran, low-income, and first-generation students.
What kind of professional is attracted to this job?
Because of the role DEI offices often play in upholding antidiscrimination policies, many administrators come from legal or labor-relations backgrounds, Granberry Russell says. She herself is a lawyer who spent more than 20 years advising Michigan State University on diversity and inclusion. Within universities, many DEI officers start out in student affairs or human-resources offices. Over the past decade, faculty members, particularly from behavioral sciences or humanities backgrounds, have also gravitated to the position.
Why are they under attack?
Conservative lawmakers have portrayed diversity officers as part of a “DEI bureaucracy” that spends vast sums of money making minority people feel like victims and white people like perpetrators. In fact, DEI spending, while growing, typically represents only half of 1 percent of university budgets, according to a 2019 analysis by Insight Into Diversity magazine.
Critics contend that some DEI programs encourage a system of race-based discrimination instead of focusing on merit. Rather than making students feel welcome, they contend, DEI offices make the campus climate more divisive.
What are some of the biggest challenges chief diversity officers face?
Sometimes, these roles are created in response to a racial crisis on campus, without clear guidelines on what the administrator is expected to accomplish. Diversity chiefs often have small budgets, few staff members, and big expectations. Some complain that their positions seem mostly symbolic, and that, without adequate support for their efforts, they feel like window dressing. And even within their offices, turf battles may break out when limited funds are spread out among several diverse groups.
Along with the political backlash many are facing, diversity directors may feel they’re being treated as the go-to people to respond whenever a racial incident breaks out. More and more diversity leaders are leaving the profession, saying they’re demoralized and burned out.
