The University of Michigan Board of Regents is considering defunding the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion office, according to the faculty senate chair. If adopted, the reform would mark a watershed moment in the battle over the future of higher education, signaling bipartisan willingness to take on the sprawling and entrenched DEI complex.
Art professor and senate chair Rebekah Modrak described the Board of Regents’ maneuverings in an email to the UM faculty senate. In early November, she said, the board met with “a small subgroup of central leadership members” to discuss “the future of DEI at UM, including possibly defunding DEI in the next fiscal year.” The board “charged the President . . . to come up with a plan to defund or ‘restructure’” UM’s diversity office—a plan, Modrak claimed, that could be brought for a vote “before the inauguration of President Donald Trump.”
These reported plans mark a shift in partisan attitudes toward DEI. The UM Board of Regents’ eight members are popularly elected, and—as in the state’s government—Democrats hold a comfortable majority. Other state universities have enacted sweeping DEI reform, but the University of Michigan would be the first “blue state” institution to do so.
The reported move comes a month after New York Times journalist Nick Confessore published an extensive and critical feature on UM’s DEI bureaucracy. He describes a “wary disdain” toward DEI efforts, and quotes students, faculty, and administrators’ concerns about the bureaucracy’s effect on campus life.
Modrak, who apparently opposes the reported reforms, claims that the Times report inspired the board’s efforts. “The NY Times article is being held up by some UM Regents as ‘evidence’ of the failure of UM’s DEI work that warrants its elimination or defunding,” she wrote, adding that some Regents spoke to the reporter and “helped set up the article’s biased framework and conclusions.” If there is dissension among the board, Modrak fails to mention it: “With seemingly no interest in accessing evidence about the successes or challenges of the program,” she observed, “the Regents cannot understand what DEI encompasses.”
The vote is shaping up to be the next episode in an ongoing campus drama. Modrak’s missive functioned as a call to arms, laying out ways that faculty can organize to oppose the vote. She notes that faculty have set up a rally and two “Grassroots Meetings about DEI,” and enjoins her colleagues to “Show up en masse” to the Regents’ next meeting.
Their outrage is expected. Even among universities, UM stands out for its extensive investment in diversity efforts, employing at least 241 DEI bureaucrats. For many years, UM set the tone for diversity efforts across higher education, disseminating some of the most controversial “best practices.” Indeed, its rubric for assessing job applicants’ contributions to diversity—which rewards those who show a “commitment to allyhood through learning about structural inequities”—has found its way into the hands of search committees at Miami University and Rutgers.
Now, the University of Michigan can chart a new course. If the Board of Regents executes what they’re reportedly planning and abolishes the school’s DEI office, it will mark a decisive moment in higher-education reform. Where Michigan leads, other “blue state” schools may follow.
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