The numbers are in, and they’re big.
The Board of Governors for the University of North Carolina system was given a report Wednesday on the state of affairs on campuses after it voted in May to repeal DEI offices and programs on each of its 17 campuses.
In the months since, 59 DEI jobs have been eliminated, another 132 jobs have been realigned, and the system as a whole has saved more than $17 million dollars, according to a report compiled for the board.
“Some will say the campuses went too far. Some will say that the campuses didn’t go far enough,” UNC system general counsel Andrew Tripp said during Wednesday’s committee meeting, reported the Raleigh News & Observer, which added that although there does not appear to be any more offices or administrative roles dedicated to DEI, “there remains variation in exactly how campuses interpreted and implemented the policy.”
The Observer reported:
[S]everal campuses, including UNC-Chapel Hill, have closed their DEI offices and eliminated several employment positions within them. But other campuses, including NC State University, renamed and reorganized their offices, generally removing words such as “diversity” from their titles but keeping other aspects of the units intact.
…Tripp told the committee that part of the variation in campuses’ changes could be attributed to differences in the sizes of campuses and the number of DEI efforts they previously offered.
“The larger campuses had more work to do,” Tripp said. “The smaller campuses, less so, but there was plenty of work to be done.”
UNC-Chapel Hill eliminated considerably more positions than any other university, at 20, and reported the most “savings” at more than $5.3 million. The next-most was at UNC Charlotte, with nine positions eliminated.
At UNC-Chapel Hill, the state’s flagship university, “programs formerly in the office have been sourced to different departments,” the Daily Tar Heel reported.
Student leaders have voiced concern over the changes.
“In the wake of serious declines in the overall diversity of our incoming class of Tar Heels, I find it extremely hard to believe that they, along with the rest of Carolina, will be better off without an office dedicated to making all students feel that they belong,” Chief of Staff to the Student Body President Nigel Parker told the student newspaper.
“I believe that this is a product of the overall politicization of higher education that has devolved our public discourse on the issue, and that the consequences of this decision will be realized in the quality of life for increasingly marginalized students at UNC.”
IMAGE: University of North Carolina system
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