To hear the advocates of “diversity” tell it, a college or university must create a big DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) bureaucracy if it is to get the supposed benefits of having a diverse student body. The students whose background makes them different and valuable to the school just won’t enroll unless DEI administrators are there to welcome them, provide “safe spaces,” racially-themed events and so on.
Not so, argues Professor Allen Mendenhall, pointing to his own institution, Troy University. In this piece, he shows that Troy has plenty of “diversity” without spending even a dollar on DEI offices.
Mendenhall writes,
Troy University has achieved diversity in part by rejecting DEI, which negatively affects organizational culture, fostering fear and resentment rather than friendship, openness, and dialogue.
Ironically, DEI racially discriminates to remedy past racism. It stifles viewpoint diversity by bureaucratizing speech restrictions with bias-reporting systems and response teams. It mandates ideological diversity and sensitivity training, seeking to compel acceptance of controversial and suspect premises.
He’s right, and one could conclude that the huge number of DEI apparatchiks we see at so many other colleges and universities are a waste of resources — or worse. Perhaps our educational leaders “invest” in DEI just as a kind of conspicuous consumption that makes them feel good.