The universities of EE. UU They are driving spending on "diversity officers". At the University of California, Berkeley, for example, the number of diversity bureaucrats has increased to approximately 175, even when state funding for college has been reduced. Diversity officers promote the hiring of ethnic minorities and women, launch campaigns to promote dialogue and develop strategic plans to increase equity and inclusion on campus. Many issue guides to avoid sexist language, unacceptable lyrics and inappropriate dress and hairstyles. Some are paid generously: the head of diversity at the University of Michigan is reported to make $ 385,000 a year. What explains your rise?
Recent years have seen a huge increase in media coverage of claims that minorities and women are treated badly on American campuses. Black students, says Derald Wing Sue, a psychologist at Columbia University, often complain that when congratulated in class, "it's almost as if the teacher is surprised" that blacks can be articulate smart. Dr. Sue's writings have helped popularize the notion that diversity officials are needed to crush such "microagressions." As stated by the Center for Diversity and Inclusion of the University of Southern Utah, the discourse and dress of the campus should "validate the identities and cultures of the people". Some schools require transgressors to receive diversity training or demand it from everyone. Students at the University of Missouri must attend training to prevent even "unconscious discrimination." A study of 669 American universities found that almost a third require teachers to attend diversity training.
Universities say that a boom in regulations under the administration of Barack Obama increased the need to hire more bureaucrats of all kinds. But one study found that for every dollar spent to meet government standards, voluntary spending on bureaucracy amounted to $ 2 at public universities and $ 3 at private universities. Robert Martin of Center College in Kentucky, co-author of the study, says the real reason for the growth in spending is that managers want to hire subordinates, thus increasing their own authority and often pay, rather than faculty, over whom they have less power Bureaucrats outperform teachers by 2: 1 in public universities and 2.5: 1 by private universities, twice the proportion in the 1970s. Diversity is the best justification for these contracts, says Richard Vedder of the Center for University Affordability and Productivity, a group of experts. Of the more than 1,000 bureaucrats at Ohio University in Athens, 400 are superfluous, he acknowledges. If released, tuition fees could be reduced by one fifth.
One of the results of all this is the increase of "resistance, anger, moodiness and eventually violent reaction" to the proliferation of diversity officials, says Alexandra Kalev of Tel Aviv. University, one of the authors of the study on diversity training in American universities. Many white male teachers, he discovered, now limit campus interaction with minorities and women, fearing that an involuntary snub will get them into trouble. High spending on diversity officials also leads to fewer classes, as well as higher tuition fees, making it difficult for minorities, who are disproportionately poor, to attend college. Could the students rebel? It seems unlikely. The Donald Trump era seems to have strengthened the bureaucracy's belief in diversity that the feelings of students should be protected.
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