As bad as it is to spend money on a toxic academic bureaucracy, the destructive effects of it on campus are even worse.
As bad as it is to spend money on a toxic academic bureaucracy, the destructive effects of it on campus are even worse.
O n December 6, Mark J. Perry of the American Enterprise Institute reported that the Ohio State University spends $13.4 million per annum on payroll for 132 so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion “diversicrats,” mostly making up the staff of the university’s Offices of Institutional Equity, and Diversity and Inclusion.
In his initial tweet, Perry points out that $13.4M would cover in-state tuition for 1,120 students. I respectfully submit that he is emphasizing the wrong point. As a student at Ohio State, I see firsthand the messages that Ohio State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion endorses and promotes. Its payroll is a much bigger problem than a mere waste of funds. Despite the name, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion promotes neither diversity of thought nor opinion, and indeed seeks to exclude heterodox thinkers and ideas from campus. This $13.4 million of the taxpayers’ and students’ money pays a staff that pushes a hard-left political ideology that brooks no dissent.
To be clear: My criticism focuses solely on the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, not on the Office of Institutional Equity. Despite its rather Orwellian name, the OIE actually houses a number of federally mandated legal-compliance offices, including ADA compliance, protection of minors, EEO compliance, and the Title IX Office. OIE accounts for $3.8 million of Perry’s figure. Even critics of these laws must acknowledge that Ohio State has little choice but to pay staff members to comply with them.
The Office of Diversity and Inclusion, to which most of the remaining $9.5 million in payroll goes, is a different matter. According to its website, ODI “supports the recruitment, retention and success of students, faculty and staff who enhance the diversity of The Ohio State University,” a description that conspicuously lacks a definition of diversity. In practice, this manifests as a pursuit of racial diversity, through some legitimate research and through some affirmative-action programs and other race-targeted measures. But there’s no reason for racial diversity to be a university’s sole or overriding imperative. I oppose racially discriminatory practices in admissions, financial aid, and academic support, both those practices that discriminate against racial minorities and those that discriminate in their favor. Affirmative action is a decades-old, well-trodden topic, and ODI’s affirmative-action programs are not my focus.
On the floors of the Thompson Library’s two great atria, and on the Wexner Plaza at the east end of the Oval, sit murals painted and displayed as part of a Black Lives Matter public-art initiative. New this year, these murals were brought to campus through the Wexner Center’s and the libraries’ partnership with the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. By partnering with and endorsing the work of the Black Lives Matter organization, ODI is already making a controversial statement, choosing to work with a group that supported violent riots across the country.
Many of these murals are unobjectionable. One reads, “The time is always ripe to do right.” But a few are tinged with threats of violence. “No Justice, No Peace” reads one visible from the main doors of the Thompson Library. And a few of these murals stray into the inexcusable. One reads, “Hands up, don’t shoot,” a phrase that originated with the 2014 killing of Michael Brown, who some activists claimed had his hands up when he was shot. This was a lie. The claim was found to be inconsistent with the evidence by the Eric Holder–led Department of Justice. Threat-laced chants and outright falsehoods, displayed prominently and endorsed by ODI, betray a lack of discretion and a disregard for even the veneer of political neutrality.
ODI also hosts the President’s and Provost’s Diversity Lecture and Cultural Arts Series, which features the “most eminent scholars, artists, and professionals who discuss and exemplify inclusive excellence through diversity.” Past lecturers have included: the Reverend William J. Barber II, who, according to the ODI’s own newswriter, “delivered a stinging critique of modern Republican politics”; Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility, who spoke on becoming anti-racist in America’s racially supremacist society (as she sees it); and, most recently, Isabel Wilkerson, who spoke on America’s racial caste system.
At a university, new and controversial ideas ought to be presented and discussed. Inviting public intellectuals to lecture on these topics is in line with the mission of a university. However, these new and controversial ideas also ought to be scrutinized and debated. Yet there seems to be little of either in ODI’s Diversity Lecture series, which features no speakers defending American society as it stands, arguing against race-based tribal politics, or challenging the theory of systemic racism. The Diversity Lecture series features a lineup that seriously lacks ideological diversity.
It is bad enough that ODI is unwilling to foster a diversity of opinions itself in the speakers it invites. Worse still is its active condemnation of heterodox viewpoints when other groups provide the diversity it refuses to. In 2018, Ohio State’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom invited Ben Shapiro to campus for a lecture and Q&A session. As a prominent conservative coming to a majority-left college campus, Ben Shapiro saw fit, in his lecture, to clearly promote ideas in contravention of the prevailing campus orthodoxy. An office dedicated to diverse thought, opinions, and viewpoints would have been well-served to promote such an event. However, the Morrill Scholarship, an arm of the ODI, sent out a message from its Student Advisory Council the day of the event, stating that “many believe Shapiro’s views are openly misogynist, racist, and transphobic” and that “Shapiro’s rhetoric has the potential to threaten the emotional and mental safety of much of the campus community.” (Mind you, this was before Shapiro’s lecture.) Far from promoting ideological diversity, this branch of ODI pushed a rank partisan message in condemning Ben Shapiro. Worse yet is the claim that a dissenting opinion threatens emotional and mental safety. This is nothing less than an attack on the free exchange of ideas itself. Is this truly inclusion or diversity?
And when an open-carry group not affiliated with the university held an event on campus, the Morrill Scholarship Program again sent out a Student Advisory Council condemnation of the event. This group came to the Oval, openly armed, and stood by peacefully to talk to and engage with any students, faculty members, or staff who walked by. They broke no laws. In fact, to call this group’s action a demonstration seems a bit bold, as the participants displayed no signs, chanted no chants, and marched no marches. Yet MSP saw fit to “encourage students to not engage with the demonstrators.” It was another opportunity to explore a new and different viewpoint condemned by an arm of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Ironically, the majority of the open-carriers were African Americans: ODI sees fit only to elevate those black voices that conform to their message. So much for inclusion.
Critics may rightly point out that the programs and actions for which I have condemned ODI are not all wholly ODI’s doing; they include partnerships with other university departments and offices. But this illustrates that ODI has proven very effective at influencing the university at large and shows no signs of slowing down.
Not everything the Office of Diversity and Inclusion does is necessarily condemnable. It houses an academic research center on black males, runs a cultural center, and administers two major scholarship programs, one for low-income students and another for minorities in STEM. No doubt these programs and others housed under ODI provide meaningful help to a number of deserving students. However, the value of some of ODI’s programs does not excuse ODI’s rank partisan activism nor its fundamental betrayal of its name. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion promotes not a diverse range of viewpoints but rather a single hard-left ideology of systemic racism and critical race theory and, rather than fostering inclusion, seeks to shut down opposing viewpoints. These more extreme forms of race-based political activism have no place in the administrative offices of a state university.