After closing two DEI offices in response to Trump’s order, the university simply rebranded the affected employees and programs.
The University of Michigan (UM) announced in 2025 that it would shut down various offices and programs in response to the Trump administration’s crusade against DEI, but new research shows that a majority of its DEI staff remain employed, while the school’s DEI initiatives have simply been rebranded.
The University of Michigan “appears to have retained its commitment to DEI principles and programming, but through rebranding, repackaging, reimagining, and revised job titles,” Mark J. Perry, an economist and senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in a report shared with National Review.
“Of the 248 paid (mostly full-time) UM DEI staff from my analysis last year for the 2024-2025 academic year, 208 of those employees (and approximately 84 percent) are still working full-time at UM, while 40 employees have left UM or retired,” the report reads. “That represents a staff turnover rate of 16 percent for UM’s DEI staff, which is consistent with the 13.4 percent turnover for faculty and staff at public universities nationwide in 2024. Therefore, the loss of 40 UM DEI-related employees was likely more the result of natural staff turnover, and not the result of any intentional downsizing of UM’s diversity-related headcount.”
National Review previously reported in 2024 that the University of Michigan declared it would “no longer solicit diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure” because such statements limit free expression and intellectual diversity. However, when the university announced that policy, it reaffirmed its commitment to DEI: “Diversity, equity and inclusion are three of our core values at the university,” the provost said.
In March 2025, the University of Michigan announced it would shut down a range of DEI initiatives. In particular, the university announced that two offices focused on DEI would close, while the university-wide DEI strategic plan would be discontinued. Additionally, the university pledged to conduct a compliance review to ensure its policies, programs, and practices are legal.
“The recent statement is promising, but we’ll take the university more seriously when we see the results,” National Review’s editors wrote after the university’s announcement in 2025.
At the time, the student newspaper reported that 20 staff members were likely to be laid off.
However, it appears that the university has expanded its commitment to DEI, increasing the amount spent on salaries for employees in DEI-related roles from $14.5 million across 158 employees in the 2024-2025 academic year to $15,305,508 across 162 employees the following year.
“[The analysis suggests] that there have been no staff layoffs of ‘diversicrats’ at UM, nor have there been associated cost savings resulting from a shrinking diversity bureaucracy,” the report reads. “Instead, most of the 13 Core and Non-Core DEI units at UM remain intact with no reductions in staff or salaries. Staff titles have changed, and some diversity programs and offices have been rebranded, but much of UM’s commitment to advance DEI campus-wide remains strong, perhaps just less visible to the public than before.”
For the purposes of Perry’s research, “non-core DEI units” refers to bodies within the university that did not report to the now-defunct Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion or do not currently report to the new Access and Opportunity Office.
In some instances, the University of Michigan appears to have simply renamed its DEI initiatives. For example, the “Ross School Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion” is now the “Ross School Office of Community, Culture, and Belonging.” It has retained five of the six employees from last year.
Not only have the names of university offices or initiatives changed, but staff have been given different job titles. According to Perry’s report, 52 employees at the University of Michigan had “DEI” or the words “diversity,” “equity,” or “inclusion” in their job titles during the 2024-2025 academic year. Although there are no employees currently with DEI or such words in the job title, 45 of those 52 staff members remain employed at the university. For example, an “Assistant Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” and an “Assistant Dean for DEI” now hold the title “Assistant Dean.” Likewise, individuals who were previously described as a “Diversity Specialist” or “Inclusion Specialist” now have titles such as “Project Senior Manager,” “Project Intermediate Manager,” or “Associate Director.”
Similarly, the School of Nursing at the University of Michigan had nine full-time staff members on its “DEI Team” as recently as January 2025, and eight of those individuals remain employed at the nursing school — but many of their job titles have changed, while DEI is now described as “community culture.” For example, one individual previously identified on the website as a “Co-Chair of U-M School of Nursing Faculty & Staff of Color Workgroup” is now a “Clinical Research Project Manager.”
“Our work centers on building and sustaining a culture where differences are embraced, equity is actively pursued and inclusion is the standard,” reads the “Community Culture” section on the nursing school’s website. It continues, “We coordinate programs, workshops and dialogues that explore issues of identity, belonging and systemic inequities in health care and education.”
The University of Michigan’s nursing school currently claims that it is committed to “health equity research” and further affirms that “health equity drives our scholarship.” A research area of interest labeled on the “equity research” webpage is “point-of-care interventions to reduce health care providers’ implicit racial biases.”
And while some DEI-related offices appear to have closed, it seems that many of their staff members were relocated to another DEI-focused initiative within the university. The university’s Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion had 26 staff members before it shuttered, according to Perry’s report. However, 22 of those individuals are still employed at the school, eleven of whom are now working full-time at the new “Access and Opportunity Office.” The Access and Opportunity Office website states that its vision is to be “the epicenter of support for our academic enterprise and an equitable, inclusive culture” on campus.
Likewise, the Michigan Medicine Office for Health Equity & Inclusion is technically defunct, but Perry’s report identifies that 17 of its 20 staff members currently work at the Michigan Medicine Health Advancement. The “Health Advancement” initiative claims part of its mission to be “promoting health equity across patient care, research, education, and community partnerships.”
The School for Environment and Sustainability opened new “Office of Community Impact and Engagement.” A staff member at the university who was previously a “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity Director” now holds the position “Director of Community Impact and Engagement” within the office, while a former “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Manager” is now a “Program Manager.”
“My faculty contacts at UM tell me the biggest change they see is that they no longer receive regular emails from campus leadership about various diversity initiatives and how to get involved,” Perry told National Review in an email.
The words “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” have not been entirely scrubbed from the university’s websites. For example, the “Student Life” website describes its work as “cultivating an inclusive and equitable campus community,” while “Social Justice Education” is identified as a “core” value. It also awards a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Action” prize.
National Review previously reported that research conducted by the organization Defending Education in 2025 concluded that over 300 DEI offices and programs were active across 253 higher education institutions in the United States. Out of the 253 colleges and universities examined in the report, 16 institutions had removed DEI webpages or shut down a DEI office, while 26 higher-education institutions simply rebranded their DEI offices. Defending Education found that 237 universities still have institution-wide DEI offices and/or programs in operation.
“In a few cases, institutions appear to have moved DEI staff and programming under its ‘equal opportunity’ and ‘civil rights’ offices,” reads Defending Education’s report. As opposed to using “DEI,” some universities have opted for alternatives such as “access,” “advocacy,” “belonging,” “community,” and “resilience.”