According to emails shared on X, UM’s board of regents has reportedly directed university president Santa Ono to “defund or restructure” the DEI office in response to increasing criticism and public pressure. A vote on the issue is scheduled for Dec. 5.
“I write to share information with you about impending threats to the University of Michigan’s DEI programming and core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Rebekah Modrak, faculty senate chair, wrote in an email to faculty senate members. “It has been confirmed by multiple sources that the Regents met earlier this month in a private meeting with a small subgroup of central leadership members, and among the topics discussed was the future of DEI at UM, including the possibility of defunding DEI in the next fiscal year.”
Demands to end the university’s DEI program emerged after The New York Times revealed its shortcomings and the substantial funds being allocated to it.
“In recent years, as D.E.I. programs came under withering attack, Michigan has only doubled down on D.E.I., holding itself out as a model for other schools,” the NYT wrote in an October article. “By one estimate, the university has built the largest D.E.I. bureaucracy of any big public university. But an examination by The Times found that Michigan’s expansive — and expensive — D.E.I. program has struggled to achieve its central goals even as it set off a cascade of unintended consequences.”
Since 2016, the University of Michigan (UM) has invested $250 million into its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) program. However, students and faculty have reported a worsening campus climate, with fewer interactions across racial, religious, or political lines—contrary to the program’s intended goals, according to The New York Times. Efforts to diversify the campus have also fallen short, with Black enrollment remaining stagnant at 5%.
The DEI program has also been linked to fostering a “culture of grievance,” as its establishment coincided with a surge in complaints related to race, gender, and religion, the NYT reported. Additionally, nearly 250 university employees are involved in DEI-related efforts, costing the university approximately $30.68 million annually. The average DEI staff salary is $96,400, with some earning over $200,000, while the department head’s salary exceeds $400,000, according to American Enterprise Institute scholar Mark Perry.
In response to the article, Modrak described it as a “tendentious attack” that was “not well researched,” accusing the author of “cherry-picking” examples of UM’s shortcomings.
“I think that across the ideological spectrum both regular citizens and policymakers have really shifted on issues of identity politics,” John Sailer, senior fellow and director of higher education policy at the Manhattan Institute, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “I think a lot of people who would have at some point, probably just as a matter of knee-jerk reaction, supported diversity initiatives, have started to really reconsider what these initiatives are actually doing, and reconsider whether everything that falls under the name of DEI is actually something that they support. And so there was already the slow burn.”
The main driving force behind this shift, Sailer explained, was the wave of intense protests that erupted on college campuses nationwide following Hamas’ deadly October 7, 2023, attack on Israel, which were “absolutely a significant part of the story.”
“A lot of people were already skeptical of DEI,” Sailer said. “A lot of people were already of the opinion that these policies, even though they purport to be about diversity, in practice really have been about a particular ideological vision for higher ed. Then on October 7, I think a whole different part of the American electorate and a whole different constituency, many more people from the professional world looked at universities and thought, What on earth is going on? What is the problem here?”
The University of Michigan, like numerous other institutions, was engulfed by violent protests that led to multiple arrests and criminal charges against 11 students and alumni.
“It became clear that a part of the problem was we have these massive bureaucracies that should ostensibly promote treating people well,” Sailer continued. “And it was in fact a lot of people most involved with the DEI complex who were supporting these kind of radically anti-Israel, radically anti-West, at times, rudely antisemitic demonstrations.”
The reelection of former president Donald Trump on November 5 likely contributed significantly to this shift as well.
“I think now every elected official is aware that there’s something of a popular mandate to reform higher education, and that mandate existed before Trump was elected in 2024, but there’s also a kind of popular rebuke of the progressive identity politics,” Sailer said. “I have to think that the conversation that the University of Michigan’s regents are having about DEI would be different if there had not been this nationwide rebuke of identity politics that the election of Trump seems to represent.”
Trump has pledged several reforms to the education sector, including the complete abolition of the Department of Education. The president-elect has also promised to bring peace to Israel and Gaza, suggesting that such efforts would help reduce the rise of antisemitism in the U.S.
While many other schools nationwide have started dismantling DEI offices, some in response to state laws banning such departments and policies, the situation at the University of Michigan stands out. Most of these efforts have been spearheaded by Republican lawmakers, as seen in Texas and Florida, but in Michigan—a predominantly Democratic state—the university’s governing body is largely made up of Democrats.
“The fact that University of Michigan is an institution controlled by elected Democrats, the fact that its Board of Regents would consider doing something like this, I think it signals a broader shift,” Sailer said. “It’s a huge deal for the University of Michigan to even have this kind of reform on the table. It’s a huge deal because the University of Michigan is the exemplar when it comes to DEI. If the University of Michigan makes this decision, that marks a big shift.”
This action by the university could encourage others to adopt a similar approach.
“It could be just a massive step towards broader higher education reform,” Sailer told the DCNF.
UM and the Board of Regents did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment right away.
