University of Michigan Might Walk Back Woke Policies

The University of Michigan pioneered diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives long before “DEI” became common parlance. Today, Michigan has the largest DEI bureaucracy of any large public university in the nation. But after spending a quarter of a billion dollars on DEI since 2016, leadership isn’t sure their investment paid off. 

The university’s regents and board are considering significant reforms to the school’s DEI initiative that would redirect efforts away from diversity statements in hiring and promotion and instead foster “recruitment programs and tuition guarantees for lower-income students.” As of Dec. 5, the university “will no longer solicit diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotions, and tenure.” 

Though other schools have reformed their DEI practices under pressure from state legislatures, Michigan could be one of the “first selective public universities to rethink D.E.I from the inside,” the New York Times reports. 

DEI Failures at the University of Michigan 

Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives enjoyed popular support in the social justice surge of 2020. And though conservatives were skeptical from the start, DEI efforts have come under increasing scrutiny by mainstream moderates and liberals alike. Where the Right — and, increasingly, the political center — criticizes DEI for suppressing viewpoint diversity and encouraging racial division, the Left sees DEI as virtue signaling that doesn’t sufficiently disrupt the status quo. 

Students, faculty, and staff have criticized Michigan’s DEI programs from both angles. A 2021 survey conducted at the main Ann Arbor campus found that students felt “less of a sense of belonging” and a “less positive campus climate” than before the program’s start in 2016. These findings aren’t surprising given the DEI program’s bureaucratic grievance process pits professors and students against each other. 

At the beginning of a semester, one professor acknowledged his intentions to be “sensitive to social justice issues” and encouraged his students to “‘call me on it’ if he failed.” A student filed a Title IX complaint because that professor had “wrongly asked women in the class to educate their professor about sexism and had failed to fully acknowledge his privilege.” 

Others are frustrated that the school’s DEI initiatives don’t go far enough. University of Michigan Black Student Union speaker Princess-J’Maria Mboup called the school’s DEI initiatives “superficial.” She told the New York Times that “the students that are most affected by D.E.I. – meaning marginalized communities – are invested in the work, but not in D.E.I. itself.” 

In the Michigan Daily student newspaper, Mboup clarified that, though she and her fellow leaders of the Black Student Union have criticized DEI “as it relates to anti-Blackness and the University’s hypocrisy and complicity in the Palestinian genocide,” she does want their critiques to be “flattened and conflated with critics who don’t believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Can Higher Ed Move Away from DEI? 

This potential change at the University of Michigan reflects increasing uncertainty about what a second Trump term holds for higher education. Given the vast reliance by universities on federal grant money and federal student loans — and the growing political will to gut taxpayer-funded DEI initiatives — university administrators are right to be concerned. 

Corporate America has already started to realize the “Go Woke, Go Broke” reality. Outrage at Dylan Mulvaney’s Bud Light commercial several years ago snowballed into a movement of consumers who don’t want to spend money on products made by corporations that oppose their values. A number of companies have responded by walking back the excesses of their DEI programs. Lowe’s, Harley-Davidson, Ford Motor Company, and, most recently, Walmart have announced the end of these initiatives. (RELATED: The High-Water Mark of Woke Corporate Activism)

Now, higher education might be at a similar turning point. Between disruptive anti-Israel protests at elite universities across the nation and high-profile exposés of DEI corruption — like Claudine Gay’s plagiarism — the problems plaguing higher education are obvious. 

Some schools are pivoting away from full-throated DEI measures. This past spring, Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology eliminated the requirement for job candidates to submit diversity statements. Now, changes at the University of Michigan could signal to other universities that they, too, should reform their practices. 

Although universities that scale back or redirect their DEI programs might receive support from the broader American population, they will face harsh criticism from stakeholders closer to home: faculty, staff, and students. After all, just the potential that the University of Michigan could reshape its DEI initiatives sparked a protest at the Ann Arbor campus.

Mary Frances (Myler) Devlin is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022. 

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