They took out the "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion section off all of them. Like I know you could make the argument that these policies are just for show, but it just feels weird that even in higher education, where you’re naturally going to have a wide selection of students from different backgrounds, are getting rid of them.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    20·
    9 days ago

    I worked for a state university for a decade. they had a DEI office that had been renamed over the years, but started back in the 1970s to help minority students adjust to campus life.

    last year the president of the university–who increased his salary to 6x of what it was when I started–unilaterally dissolved it after some cranks in the state house publicly complained about DEI/woke culture war crap.

    50 years and gone overnight.

    employees were confused and angry, but he had spent the previous six months neutering the shared governance model and paying off tenured facility with market adjustment raises. everybody else (+90% of all workers) got zilch. you could say the university shafted 90% of the workers and gave their raises to the already most highly paid and powerful managers.

    I rapidly started looking for another job, but straight up I think the state schools are going to rapidly follow what happened with WVU last year. its gonna be a total tear down and re-concentration of value within state institutions to a tiny minority of administrators running the training & internship programs regional capitalist formations want and soliciting corporate partnership as every public service mission and program is gutted and left for dead.

    this has been a long time in the works and the willing collaborators have been found and painstakingly installed in the necessary positions over the decades.

    the pieces are all in place and I think the changes are going to be so fast from here forward, many these institutions will be unrecognizable in 10 years.

    straight up, University of Georgia, School of Ecology brought to you by Gibson Truck World.