Chief Diversity Officers Struggling Under New Rules and DEI Bans
“The minute this became an uncomfortable political situation, the CDOs were left out to dry”
This became an industry within higher ed and a lot of people got very high-paying jobs. Now the gravy train is coming to an end.
Inside Higher Ed reports:
Chief Diversity Officers Are Struggling
Campus chief diversity officers are under significant pressure as state, and now federal, DEI bans proliferate. Their work has been repeatedly questioned, rebranded or slashed in recent years, and they’ve been tasked with difficult decisions about how to respond.
It’s taking a toll on them, according to a recent report by researchers at the University of Michigan and George Mason University.
And that was even before Donald Trump was re-elected. The report based its findings on hourlong qualitative interviews with 40 chief diversity officers, conducted between November 2023 and June 2024, in states with proposed or enacted laws or executive orders against DEI or critical race theory. It found that CDOs took a variety of approaches to navigating an increasingly hostile political environment—and the challenges of doing so have had a detrimental impact on their health and careers.
Jeffrey Grim, a co-author of the report and assistant professor of higher education at George Mason, said chief diversity officers generally “came in wanting to help all faculty, staff and students excel and be successful.” And university leaders eagerly hired them to do so, publicizing their work during the national racial reckoning that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020. Now diversity officers report feeling not just stressed and anxious but also socially isolated from other executive-level leaders because of growing tensions around DEI work in their states.
“The minute this became an uncomfortable political situation, the CDOs were left out to dry,” Grim said. “Nobody should feel isolated and wrong for doing the job that they were hired to do.”
While the interviews were conducted before Trump took office, chief diversity officers’ fears and anxieties have only escalated since the administration put out anti-DEI directives of its own, said Kaleb L. Briscoe, assistant professor of adult and higher education at University of Oklahoma, who has also conducted research on diversity officers’ experiences under DEI bans.
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Comments
This is so sad. /s
Still pushing the “police killing of George Floyd” lie, I see.
DEI is such a fraud. All whites are guilty of racism unless and until they demonstrate they are anti-racist? Shut it down.
DEI officials are literally low intelligent, ignorant, bottom of the barrel grifters who couldn’t do any other work and can barely do DEI without plagiarizing someone else words and often not even then. They should never have been hired. They should never have accepted. They should be isolated and feel wrong.
Assuage their painful struggles with the soothing balm of unemployment.
Jeffrey Grim, a co-author of the report and assistant professor of higher education at George Mason, said chief diversity officers generally “came in wanting to help all faculty, staff and students excel and be successful.”
lol, they weren’t helping all, but helping some at the expense of others. We have to be aggressive and cut through the nice sounding lies.