UMDEIdefense

Why we need DEI

Guidepost Solutions' chairman is monitoring the extortion of Columbia by Trump. U. of Michigan regents, all on their own, hired "consultants" from Guidepost last year to comb through video tapes to harass and attempt to expel students who protested the war on Gaza.

Fired D.E.I. Administrator Sues the University of Michigan

Regent Bernstein makes a mockery of First Amendment rights. According to the state charter, regents have no authority to meddle in hiring decisions, let alone to subject members of our campus to their petty whims and biases. Donating $$ to the Dems shouldn’t protect him.

Former DEI administrator sues University of Michigan, alleges discrimination in firing Rachel Dawson claims the University of Michigan deviated from its normal disciplinary process to fire her.

U-Mich's Regent Bernstein overrides the assessment of UM administrators and tells the General Counsel to immediately terminate Rachel Dawson, our director of multicultural initiatives. Our regents have turned U-M's campus into a theater where they act on their biases and pettiness.

From The Daily: The Regents must answer for the surveillance of students It is crucial to explicitly condemn those responsible for this assault on students: the University’s Board of Regents. This Editorial Board believes regents who authorized the payments to Amerishield ...

I love the Michigan Daily.

“the relative silence from the regents surrounding their efforts to commit acts of espionage against their own student body is alarming. Their response …shows that even despite the accusations, the regents have no interest in taking responsibility for their actions.”

In April, Mississippi enacted a new anti-DEI law that would, among other things, prohibit public colleges, universities and K-12 schools from “engag[ing]” in “any formal or informal education . . . that focus[es] on increasing awareness or understanding of issues related to race, sex, color, gender identity, sexual orientation or national origin.” So, we’re suing. We had our first hearing in federal court on Tuesday, seeking a temporary restraining order and a preliminary junction. We’re right, and we’re going to win.

Bravo to the Mississippi educators seeking a restraining order to the law prohibiting educators from teaching students about issues "related to race, sex, color, gender identity, sexual orientation or national origin.” @insurgentprof.bsky.social

Brendan Cantwell, a higher education professor at Michigan State University, said Ryan’s resignation is a “major blow” to the independence of American institutions. “It is a sign that major public research universities are substantially controlled by a political party whose primary goal is to further its partisan agenda and will stop at nothing to bring the independence of higher education to heel,” he told Inside Higher Ed. “It undercuts both the integrity of academic communities as self-governing based on the judgment of expert professionals and the traditional accountability that public universities have to their states via formal and established governance mechanisms.”

@cantb.bsky.social on the federal government forcing UVA's president to resign. (Inside Higher Ed)

A White Nationalist Wrote a Law School Paper Promoting Racist Views. It Won Him an Award.

Here's the problem: Universities' recent embrace of "institutional neutrality" policies are at odds with their goals to help students develop as thoughtful, moral citizens.

Gift link.

Fact vs. Fiction: The Trump Administration’s Dubious War on Reverse Discrimination The Trump administration’s focus on “reverse discrimination” against White people is not backed by data and reflects a political narrative of White grievance.

“Accordingly, the Trump administration has engaged in selective outrage about discrimination, focusing disproportionately on a supposed rampant anti-White racism problem in this country that is not supported by data, while remaining silent about prevalent discrimination against racial minorities.”

Just as real as Ono being a “mouse doctor” who has no views about vaccines.

Time after time during his public interviews, both before the state board and UF’s trustees, Ono showed a willingness to embrace positions popular among conservatives or to renounce his past liberal stances. Questioned about mandating Covid vaccines, for example, Ono played down the real-world applicability of his hard-earned academic credentials, pronouncing himself a mere “mouse doctor,” and “a test-tube guy.” It was, for some who watched, a cringy and telling moment in which a well-educated person seemed willingly to shun the one thing academics value most: expertise.

"At a moment when higher education is in the political crosshairs, Ono appeared to some like he was more interested in joining the snipers than fighting back alongside his academic brethren."

www.chronicle.com/article/he-w...

Exposed: University of Michigan Hired Undercover Spies to Target Students As a second-generation alum of the University of Michigan, I’ve often reflected on how this institution shaped my life. The Diag, the center of campus with its steady hum of voices calling out inju…

“Leadership requires moral clarity, not strategic evasion. Students were followed, harassed, and criminalized under your watch. History will remember.”
@professorjvh.bsky.social

May U-M Faculty report to regents re: excessive surveillance:
regents.umich.edu/files/meetin...

Opinion | The Ruination of Santa Ono When an accomplished man is reduced to pandering, it’s a sad spectacle.

How did Santa Ono lose a one-man race?

Professor @silkyweineck.bsky.social writes: “Perhaps it was the instinctive bipartisan contempt most of us feel for blatant pandering: Ono’s assurances that he would follow orders had .. an eagerness to humiliate himself that does not signal leadership.”

Tracking Higher Ed’s Dismantling of DEI We’ve documented actions taken on hundreds of campuses to alter or eliminate jobs, offices, hiring practices, and programs amid mounting political pressure to end identity-conscious recruitment and re...

The Chronicle is tracking higher ed’s dismantling of DEI efforts.

For the College Presidency, It’s Officially Campaign Season Santa Ono’s quest to lead the U. of Florida has looked an awful lot like a national political run.

“In his opening remarks, Ono spent much of his time on the political defensive. He forswore DEI, pledged to combat antisemitism, beat back charges that he’s a climate-change fanatic, and assured the board that he’s no longer issuing land-acknowledgement statements to honor Indigenous people.”

Opinion | Trump Has His Law Firms Right Where He Wants Them

“By giving in, the capitulating firms and universities will learn a lesson from the streets that Mr. Trump knows better than they do: Borrowing money from a loan shark isn’t simply adding a new monthly expense; making that kind of deal is a way of life.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/o...

Opinion | U-M regents have another chance at choosing a leader. Will they take it? | Bridge Michigan Michigan needs a wartime leader, a victor valiant who will stay and be a champion. Ono wasn't. The regents must make it clear that his replacement should be.

My colleagues @scottlgreer.bsky.social and Julie Boland write that Ono “created a polarized mess that hurt the university, and his intransigence led to staff being fired with no warning just weeks ago. A new president should accept that Michigan is a socially engaged and active university.”

President Ono said, “I’m very pleased that DEI 1.0 has taken place…. It’s a very strong foundation upon which we must build… We have to be committed to continuous positive momentum. And if you don’t do that, then you’ll take one step forward, two steps back. So, it’s incredibly important to me, from these early days that I’m here to clearly show that I’m behind DEI 1.0, but also to making sure that, when we proceed and embark on DEI 2.0, that we do so with even more vigor and even more determination.”

Santa Ono, in 2023, was asked (not under duress) about his commitment to DEI.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=pXKo...

YouTube video by U-M Survivors Speak Up! DEI 1.0 Evaluation Report w/ Santa J. Ono, President of U-M -- systemic racism

In 2023, Santa Ono 1.0 explains why DEI is personally important to him. Ono 2.0 is now telling U-F that DEI is “about ideology.”

UF president finalist Ono talks DEI, experimental learning in meetings with students, faculty Dr. Santa J. Ono, the current president of the University of Michigan, is the only finalist to become the University of Florida's 14th president.

Ono cut ODEI at UM to prove himself to UF:

"Some of the things I hear is not everyone is included in the support that's provided," Ono said. "To me, it's an American thing to support all students as opposed to just some of the students.”

In honor of Santa Ono leaving U-M for the University of Florida, it seems only fit that our U-M Graduate Student Employees organization should issue his final report card.

Michigan Students and Leaders Welcome President Ono This is "Michigan Students and Leaders Welcome President Ono" by Peter Smith-Buchanan on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

My artworks recreate dubious brand messaging to explicitly state the implicit. So when U-M launched the Ono presidency in 2022 (after a series of devastating sex abuse scandals) with a choreographed video of “university pres as mascot” in the spirit of Glee and Bye Bye Birdie, I assembled a team.

U-M President Santa Ono lacked the stomach to stick around | Letters The University of Michigan is at a crossroads. As we begin the search for a new president, we must be clear-eyed about what kind of leader we need.

Ono goes to Florida to continue playing dead.

This disregard for democratic or parademocratic norms is unacceptable, and it does not bode well for the future when regents can publicly decry “authoritarian regimes” while themselves acting without regard for the consent of the governed.” 2/2

“To date, neither the regents nor our administration have publicly acknowledged the fact that more than 3,000 senate members asked them to defend academic freedom … and restore, within legal parameters, the DEI initiatives they abandoned. 1/2
@silkyweineck.bsky.social

Ohio University closing diversity offices, women and pride centers ATHENS, Ohio (WCMH) — Ohio University announced Tuesday that it is sunsetting its diversity, equity and inclusion offices, including the Multicultural Center, Pride Center and Women’s C…

Ohio University announced that it is shuttering its diversity, equity and inclusion offices, including the Multicultural Center, Pride Center and Women’s Center. nbc4i.co/3SgzRNO?utm_...

If you’re craving serious examples of bad-ass women, I just published a single-essay book about Arijana Lekić-Fridrih, who has literally been standing up to confront the men praying for “male authority” en masse in public squares in Croatia.

disobediencepress.com/arijana-leki...

#womensrights