DEI Certificate Programs Proliferate: “Training a Cadre of Political Commissars”

DEI Certificate Programs Proliferate: “Training a Cadre of Political Commissars”

CriticalRace.org, a project of the Legal Insurrection Foundation, has unique and unparalleled interactive maps and databases demonstrating how Critical Race Theory and its progeny, such as Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) and Ibram Kendi’s misnamed “anti-racism,” have deeply penetrated every corner of academia. The racialization of education is all but complete.

We now cover over 700 institutions covering Higher Education, Elite K-12, Military Service Academies, Veterinary Schools, and U.S. Business Schools. What is perhaps our flagship database covers Medical Schools. The databases have been covered, linked to, and cited over 150 times by other media.

Our latest database is DEI Certificate Programs, which are non-academic, non-degree programs that have proliferated as higher education sought to cash in on the post-George Floyd CRT/DEI feeding frenzy. These certificates are touted as career enhancers for the burgeoning DEI career bureaucracies that have spread like wildfire through academia, corporations, and government.

You will find such certificate holders almost everywhere there is DEI, including the Columbia University Medical DEI Chief, in the news recently due to accusations he plagiarized his dissertation in part from Wikipedia, who had a DEI Certificate from eCornell, and online offshoot of Cornell University. It will come as no surprise to our readers that Cornell is a leader in these DEI Certificates, with six different Certificate programs; none of the other colleges and universities had more than one program.

In all, the database covers 48 colleges and universities, and 53 programs (because Cornell has six programs).

As it has many of our other databases, Fox News Digital covered this rollout, Many top colleges ‘training a cadre of political commissars’ through DEI certificate programs: Watchdog (archive):

Many American colleges and universities are offering diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) certificates that are not only a “George Floyd anti-racism push” cash grab, but also wildly misleading, according to the founder of CriticalRace.org.

“This is essentially training a cadre of political commissars on DEI to run corporations, to infiltrate and to advance in corporations,” William A. Jacobson told Fox News Digital.

CriticalRace.org, which monitors CRT curricula and training in higher education, has expanded its database to include schools that offer DEI certificates. These certificates, often earned online, allow people to put the names of prestigious schools on their resume when they didn’t actually attend the school, but rather paid for a certificate program displaying its name….

“When people think about it, they should think about critical race theory as the theory and diversity, equity and inclusion as to how that theory gets implemented. So, diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, are the action items by which critical race theory is pushed into education and also corporations and government,” Jacobson said….

“One of the things we began to notice is nonacademic DEI certificates being issued by colleges and universities. They have programming, and they have separate entities which offer for-pay education certificates on diversity, equity and inclusion,” Jacobson said.

“One of the reasons we thought that was important is that DEI is no longer just in higher education. What started on campuses did not stay on campuses,” he continued. “It’s now in corporate America.”

After reviewing America’s top 100 colleges and universities, CriticalRace.org found that 48 schools offer DEI certificate programs. Among schools that list the cost of its DEI certificate program, CriticalRace.org found that the average cost is over $4,000, with Northwestern University’s certificate costing the most at $24,788.

“These are big moneymakers for higher education. They don’t incur very much overhead, these are done online, these are programs that can be repeated, you don’t need to create new content every time,” Jacobson said. “The universities that do this are essentially cashing in on the George Floyd anti-racism push.”

Jacobson also noted that DEI certificates can also be seen as a negative on a resume, to some, as backlash to the movement has made national news. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt, both Republicans, banned DEI in state colleges and universities this year. Some high-profile DEI officers have been accused of plagiarism and some major companies have scaled back DEI initiatives.

According to data provided by job site Indeed, DEI-related job postings in 2023 declined 44% as two driving forces behind the reduction in DEI at companies have emerged. The first is a shift in priorities amid layoffs, and the second is the threat of discrimination lawsuits….

“So, at a time when the mainstream media is covering the retrenchment in hiring for DEI positions, these schools are going nonstop, taking people’s money for DEI certificates to advance them in a declining market, without disclosing that, and we think that’s very deceptive,” Jacobson said.

“You may be spending money on a certificate which not only doesn’t help you, but might hurt you,” Jacobson added. “Having the certificate may actually be a detriment to your resume.”

You can read our full Report On DEI Certificate Programs at the link and below:

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