The revelation this month that the University of Virginia has been spending $20 million per year on 235 employees who focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) was astonishing.
For example, the senior associate dean of the business school is also the global chief diversity officer. He is paid $587,340 including benefits. The vice president of DEI and community partnerships takes home an estimated $520,000 in salary and benefits. There is a whole slate of DEI executives—vice presidents, associate deans, directors, assistant directors, managers, and so on—who earn up to $400,000 in salary and benefits.
The terrible irony for Virginia is that this DEI scheme is fleecing a university founded by Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence and famously penned the principle that “all men are created equal.” Since our founding—and through generations of intense civil discourse and serious effort—America has worked toward creating a society in which every American has equal opportunity and can succeed through hard work and determination.
To be clear: Diversity is good. America has been successful largely because it is a melting pot of people and cultures. I am also for making sure people are included and participate in our civil society.
However, I—and many other Americans—have serious concerns about the concept of placing equity over equality. Equity means guaranteeing people equal outcomes. DEI’s disciples will tell you that equity is merely an effort to correct past discrimination and persecution. However, in practice, equity means treating people differently—or granting special accommodations—based on their ethnicity, sex, or other intrinsic traits. This flies in the face of everything we learned from the Civil Rights Movement and is the antithesis of the basic concept of equality.
Virginia Gov. Glen Youngkin has begun to investigate DEI programs at some of the largest colleges in the state. His administration is seeking to review curriculum at George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University. As the administration told the publication Higher Ed:
“The administration has heard concerns from members of the Board of Visitors, parents, and students across the Commonwealth regarding core curriculum mandates that are a thinly veiled attempt to incorporate the progressive left’s groupthink on Virginia’s students. ... Virginia’s public institutions should be teaching our students how to think, not what to think and not advancing ideological conformity.”
In a separate statement, Mr. Youngkin’s press secretary, Macaulay Porter, told reporters that the governor “will continue to advance equal opportunities—not equal outcomes—for all Virginians.”
Mr. Youngkin and other state leaders are right. The DEI industry is a racket that must be shut down.
