@goodthiiings - Bluesky Profile

BSU STATEMENT ON THE DISMANTLING OF DET AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN March 30th, 2025 On Thursday, March 27, 2025, University of Michigan President Santa Ono, Provost & Executive VP for Academic Affairs Laurie McCauley, Executive VP for Medical Affairs Marshall Runge and Executive VP & CFO Geoffrey Chatas sent an email to the university community stating that they were reneging on the university's nearly nine year commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). This university, made up of the "Leaders and Best," should have the spine to fight for their students and staff until the very end. Our administrators should have stood up for us, should have advocated for us, and should have protected us - until they were literally forced to acquiesce. The university did not have to cut DEI - they wanted to. In recent years, DEI has become a weapon wielded by white supremacists in office to sow division amongst the American people. From Donald Trump, who referred to DEI as a form of "tyranny," to Regent Sarah Hubbard, who called UM's DEI programs "curtailment of speech," white conservatives in this country are no longer hiding their racism behind facades of valuing a "merit-based society," and "diversity of thought," and are openly speaking to the real problem of DEI - the advancement of Black people. We, as Black students, have often spoken to the limitations of the university's bureaucratic DEI system, in hopes of improvement. We have advocated for increased student involvement and control of DEI initiatives, and the prioritization of Black voices - both students and staff - as the way towards a truly more equitable university. We, the Black Student Union, have worked tirelessly to try to improve the existing structure and efficacy of the university's DEI work. Our More Than Four platform, housed under the now-defunct Office of DEI (ODEI, was aimed at increasing Black student enrollment at the university, a hope that is now even more far-fetched.

Current and former students have poured countless hours into advocating for themselves, and those who would come after them. To blatantly throw out all of the programs that they worked so hard for is to spit in the faces of generations of Black students, staff, and faculty on this campus. Furthermore, these attacks on DEI are coupled with attacks on student's rights - the right to protest, to dissent, and to use their voices - that were crucial to the advancement of Black students, and other students of color, on this campus. The Black Action Movements (BAM I, II, & III) of 1970, 1975, Jand 1987, along with #BeingBlackatUM in 2013, led to crucial wins for Black students and benefits for the entire university community. The student strikes of BAM I, in 1970, led to the creation of the Afro and African American Department here at UM, and #BBUM led to the creation of the Trotter Multicultural Center, the only building to be named after a Black person on UM's campus. These wins did not happen through quiet negotiations with the university, but through loud, disruptive, and angry protest. To crack down on student activism, especially in such violent and repressive ways as to sic the university police on students sleeping in the Diag, is to disregard the long history of student activism on this campus, and is deeply cowardly. The dismantling of DEI has real-life consequences. Staff who have worked their whole careers to support and protect students of color have suddenly had their lives upended. Jobs are not only people's passions, but their livelihoods - how they feed their children. Students who have chosen to pursue fields based in the advancement of and advocacy for marginalized communities are suddenly left scrambling.

We wholeheartedly condemn the university's disgusting and deplorable stance on DEI programs. The regents and Santa Ono are rolling over to the Trump Administration's blatant racism, and are ensuring that conditions on this campus get even worse for students of color, especially Black students. Violence against Black students is already present on campus. From intimidation tactics by hate groups such as "White Lives Matter," to the word "n*gger" being scrawled across the walls in East Quad, we can already see how life under Trump affects Black people. Santa Ono and the regents are perfectly comfortable subjecting Black students on this campus to the growing racism and anti-Blackness that runs rampant in this country, and don't have the backbone to even attempt to defend us against rising facism. To Santa Ono: You are a coward, and bending to the will of fascists will not save you. To the regents: We see you for the racists you are. Truth! Action! Power! The Black Student Union #EyesOnBlack #BringBlackUmich

The University of Michigan Black Student Union has released a statement on the dismantling of DEI at the institution.

"To Santa Ono: You are a coward, and bending to the will of fascists will not save you.

To the regents: We see you for the racists you are."

Via: www.instagram.com/p/DH1qbq8JpvJ/

30.03.2025 21:48 — 👍 749 🔁 293 💬 11 📌 18

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