University jobs in diversity, equity and inclusion and related initiatives have exploded at one school in recent years, according to an analysis by National Review.
SO WHAT
Wokeness is big business these days.
THE CHART
National Review reported Monday that the “DEI” bureaucracy exploded at the University of Michigan in particular from 2002 to 2021.
The school went from employing 40 DEI staffers in 2002 to 167 last year.
- According to the Heritage Foundation’s Diversity University report, released in July, DEI staff make up an average 3.4 positions for every 100 tenured faculty.
- The average university employs more than 4.2 times the number of DEI faculty than the number of staff it assigns to help students with disabilities in receiving reasonable accommodations.
- And DEI employees outnumber history professors by 140%.
The Heritage Foundation concluded that “[p]romoting DEI has become a primary function of higher education.”
BIG BUSINESS
It’s not just universities spending big on diversity professionals — the rise of “wokeness” has created an industry said to be worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor Thomas Kochan estimated that companies spent $264 million on DEI programs in 2014 and 2015.
- That was up from $8 billion in 2003.
- 63% of diversity pros at S&P 500 companies were appointed or promoted to their roles in the previous three years, journalist Pamela Newkirk reported in 2019.
The free agents: Authors Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi have reportedly demanded eye-popping fees to speak and write about the secrets of “anti-racism.”