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Notes -
University of Texas Austin Fires dozens of DEI-related employees
https://president.utexas.edu/organizational-changes
The University of Texas is, notoriously, much more liberal than the state for which it is the flagship, and in light of the frequent motte discussion about how conservatives can make whatever laws they want, and progressives will just ignore them, I thought it was worth sharing the abovelinked letter. I guess you need more of a submission statement than that, so I'll begin with picking out a few highlights.
Now I would prefer it if those deans focused on DEI were offered the opportunity of becoming janitors or being summarily terminated, and called the RINOs representing me to the state requesting that change to SB17, but it's, undeniably, an effect, and a fairly significant one given that my impression is that academics really resent having to actually teach classes and prefer to do either pure research or at least focus on passing asspulls off as research, and also that DEI programs seem to have providing comfortable employment as a primary goal over actually doing anything. I'd also like to point towards teaching and research being the actual functions of a university, and even if these people could be replaced with less odious professors requiring them to be mission focused is a major improvement.
And, to note, this is an effect began with the state legislature banning DEI, and not for some other reason, or at least that's what the letter opens by assuring us.
It's worth noting the UT's endowment is literally the size of Harvard's, and so 'money problems' is not the secret real reason. I haven't crunched the numbers on this, but I suspect that the endowment is big enough relative to operating expenses that UT could just ride out any measures imposed by the state as a noncompliance penalty short of "send in the state troopers and haul faculty out in handcuffs". Not that I'd put the latter past the state, but UT would be extremely reasonable to think that that particular measure is not a step one in the event of a noncompliant university and so they'd kind of have a while to drag their feet.
CNN is reporting that the total number of staff cut is unknown(https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/03/us/university-texas-austin-cutting-dei-jobs-reaj/index.html)
And that same article also gave me material for a minirant:
Ma'am, you going to college is not about the experience. It's not about enrichment or programs you value- it's about you getting an education. Now I suspect that the president of a university black student alliance is getting an education in something extremely low value, but still- the government isn't funding college to make students feel valued and empowered and grant them a fun experience. The need to offer more fun, luxurious experiences to students seems like a part of cost disease in higher education that makes life worse for everyone who can't afford the ludicrous pricetag. Honestly, if I had my way, students at government-funded universities would be required to live in the same conditions as enlisted members of the military, with barracks and early morning calisthenics, for at least the first year, and barred from using loans or government funding to finance any lifestyle improvements or extracurriculars past that.
Rant over. Discussion prompts- is this a falsification of the narrative, so popular on the motte, that it doesn't matter how conservative a government is, it can't stop the cathedral from doing whatever it damn well pleases? Is this evidence of the cathedral being less monolithically progressive than commonly believed? Is it some Texas specific factor?
I don't remember which college it was — it has to have been years ago that I read about it, probably on campusreform.org — but I do remember reading about a school that disbanded its 'DEI office' (I don't think that acronym was in broad currency yet then, so it was called something else), redistributed its budget, let go of its staff, etc. What then happened was that each individual department opened up their own separate office, out of their own budgets. So you had a DEI office for the English department, a DEI office for the history department, a DEI office for the engineering department, a DEI office for the math department… and, as a result, the school ended up spending more money and having more people work on "diversity." Note how many of the DCCE's programs are being redistributed to "overlapping" activities — why not start doing all the DEI stuff out of those?
And even if that doesn't happen, then the individual professors can keep up promoting the ideology instead, without the "remaining DCCE activities." After all, this doesn't do anything about the massive ideological slant of the college faculty (of pretty much all college faculties in America except the explicitly right-wing ones like Liberty and Hillsdale). Does this really change anything beyond a little less money going to DEI and a few less DEI commissars?
That is, assuming they actually are letting a significant number go. After all, beyond our weepy student, do we have any evidence that "all the staff members… are just going to be gone"?
Because they could just be making this big, dramatic show of "complying" (at least on the surface, per my earlier arguments) with SB17 — despite, as you note, having the funds to resist doing so — knuckling over to those evil, anti-intellectual (because stupid) Republicans who are attacking them for no reason other than that those politicians think they have a left-wing bias, when really, it's that reality has a left-wing bias, and this is just Scopes 2.0 — slack-jawed bible-thumping morons trying to prevent professors from teaching truths that these close-minded, superstitious bigots refuse to accept — so as to generate a backlash, starting with big-budget donors, alumni, media, and on to broader academia, to produce a backlash against those politicians and to get the bill overturned. After which, everyone gets transferred back to the restored DEI office.
And all this is before larger-scale authorities get involved. Expect UTA's position in the college rankings to plummet to the likes of Liberty, Phoenix, and Grand Canyon. The accrediting bodies could start reviewing their accreditation… or just withdraw it. The Department of Education can declare their students ineligible for Federal financial aid. The Federal government could enact overriding legislation. SCOTUS could strike the bill down as a violation of academic freedom, and thus free speech.
This is nothing. Its material effects are likely to be minimal, and it will almost certainly end up reversed (and then some) by the inevitable backlash. In the end, UTA is going to wind up even further Left.
Why would you expect a backlash? Affirmative action is consistently highly unpopular with the general public, bringing it back doesn’t have the chance for much public sympathy. UTA’s best odds for maintaining their DEI system is to stall for time.
I'm not expecting a backlash from the general public, I'm expecting an elite backlash — wealthy, politically-connected donors; major media figures; esteemed academics; etc.
"Public sympathy" is irrelevant, because most people are powerless peasants whose opinions don't matter. It's elite opinion that matters.
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