DeSantis probe of Florida college ‘diversity’ spending set to uncover wasted clandestine millions

By James On Jan 6, 2023

Education watchdogs have welcomed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ order that state universities disclose their spending on diversity and CRT programs, saying it will lift the lid on millions of dollars of wasted public funds every year. .

Analysts from the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and other think tanks told DailyMail.com that spending on “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) schemes at universities public was out of control.

Studies of public universities in North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan have shown an explosion of DEI jobs in recent years, with some earning as much as $500,000 per year, costing taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

DEI staff now hold more than 3.4 positions for every 100 tenured faculty, according to national research by The Heritage Foundation, stoking fears of a sprawling industry that some say is nothing more than an exercise in box-ticking .

Jenna Robinson, president of the Martin Center, said DeSantis’ order would expose much more about DEI’s largesse than is now known, as it requires an accounting of all costs, not just salaries, as well as spending on schemes. critical career theory (CRT). .

“Although some work has already been done to expose the rising costs of DEI staff at universities across the country, the Florida investigation will be by far the most comprehensive,” Robinson told DailyMail.com.

‘Higher education is in dire need of this kind of transparency.’

DeSantis, a Republican, wants Florida’s public universities to disclose all government funds spent on DEI and CRT-related programs, classes and other initiatives as part of his efforts to focus on education in his second term as governor.

Florida higher education systems that receive state funds will be required to provide a list of programs related to diversity and race, including staff hired to teach or mentor these groups or classes, according to a memo.

The DEI and CRT are at the forefront of America’s culture wars, with liberals saying they help address the nation’s racist past, and conservatives hitting out the back door at a left-wing elite’s attempt to reshape society. .

According to Robinson, the DeSantis investigation is broader than those seen elsewhere, including his own group study of the University of North Carolina System of 16 colleges, which discovered more than $12 million spent on DEI staff salaries.

A University of South Florida student protesting the Tampa school’s failure to enroll black students in July 2020. It is debated whether hiring “diversity” administrators attracts more minorities to schools.

Prospective students and their families take a tour of the University of Central Florida campus this past February. Governor DeSantis wants state public schools to disclose details about their diversity spending and CRT schemes

This included 11 DEI administrators at UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State University who earned more than $100,000 per year. The schools’ 30-person diversity team was growing and would “soon include deans and associate deans,” the researchers said.

Likewise, a Ohio State University probe by The College Fix in 2018 lifted the lid on 88 diversity-related administrators, including deans, provosts and directors, at a cost of about $7.3 million in salaries and benefits.

Mark Perry, an economist at AEI, researched salary data at the University of Michigan, a public school in Ann Arbor, and found that the number of diversity jobs had risen from none in 2003 to 142 last year.

Nearly 100 of them make more than $100,000 a year, Perry said, including vice chancellor for diversity Tabbye Chavous, with a base salary of $380,000. Total compensation for the university’s diversicrats is about $18 million a year, she added.

The school’s botanical garden and arboretum even have a full-time diversity and inclusion specialist, said Perry, who warned against “wasteful” spending on “misguided goals of social justice, racial justice and gender justice.”

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis addresses the crowd after being sworn in to begin his second term earlier this month. He has promised to focus on education.

“Those resources could be better spent reducing tuition rather than feeding new layers of costly administrative inflation that ends up being passed on to students in the form of higher tuition and fees,” Perry told DailyMail.com.

In their own count of 65 US public universities, the Heritage Foundation in 2021 found that the University of Michigan had the highest ratio of diversity-related staff: 15 per 100 tenured faculty, well above the average of 3.4.

The conservative National Association of Scholars in two reports last year warned against DEI ideas ‘taking over’ from the University of Tennessee and expand nationally from humanities departments to those that teach math, science and technology.

Miami students cheer in the stands during a college football game in November 2022. Governor DeSantis wants to highlight how much money public universities spend on ‘diversity’ and CRT programs

Opinions on the value of DEI equipment are mixed.

Anthony Hennen, former managing editor of the Martin Center, said universities hire DEI staff and develop programs such as a “risk-averse legal strategy” to avoid lawsuits over biased or racist practices.

“It’s a tick the box approach,” Hennen told DailyMail.com.

“I don’t think it would do much to boost diversity — just taking that money from DEI and sending it off as scholarships would probably do more.”

Others say DEI and CRT, a scholarly approach to the legacy of slavery, are needed to help America overcome the racism left behind by slavery and other deep-seated inequalities.

Angie Nixon, a Florida Democrat, said the DeSantis investigation was putting the “freedom to run DEI programs at public colleges and universities … on the radar for destruction.”

“Nothing is safe and it’s disgusting,” Nixon tweeted.

A memo from Florida budget director Chris Spence has set a January 13 deadline for universities to detail spending on classes, programs and personnel related to diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) and critical theory. of the race (CRT)

CRITICAL RACE THEORY: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

The fight for critical race theory in schools has intensified in the United States in recent years.

The theory has sparked a fierce nationwide debate in the wake of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests over the past year and the introduction of the 1619 Project.

The 1619 Project, which was published by the New York Times in 2019 to commemorate 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived on American shores, recasts American history by “placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the Center of the Narrative USA’.

The debate surrounding critical race theory addresses concerns that some children are being indoctrinated into thinking that white people are inherently racist or sexist.

Opponents of critical race theory have argued that it reduces people to categories of ‘privileged’ or ‘oppressed’ based on the color of their skin.

Supporters, however, say the theory is vital to eliminating racism because it examines the ways race influences American politics, culture and law.