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Black students dismiss University of Michigan’s DEI programs as ‘well-meaning failure’: Report

The University of Michigan North Campus signage at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan on July 30, 2019.  (Raymond Boyd/Getty Images)

One student called UM’s diversity efforts "superficial" and, despite the institution’s programs, they betrayed "a general discomfort with naming Blackness explicitly."

Furthermore, Confessore added that Mboup’s "discontent" reflected a tension he found "threaded throughout DEI" at UM. More precisely, he found a "pervasive uncertainty around whom—and what—DEI is really for."

After meeting with students with a "wide range of backgrounds and perspectives," Confessore wrote that "not one expressed any particular enthusiasm for Michigan’s D.E.I. initiative."

"Where some found it shallow, others found it stifling. They rolled their eyes at the profusion of course offerings that revolve around identity and oppression, the D.E.I.-themed emails they frequently received but rarely read," he added.

A police car patrols the University of Michigan campus.  (UMich)

He explained further that UM’s "own data" suggests that in its pursuit of diversity and equity, the academic institution has become less inclusive via a survey in 2022 showing "students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging." 

Confessore went on to write, "Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics — the exact kind of engagement D.E.I. programs, in theory, are meant to foster."

Another criticism of UM's DEI efforts came from a member of the university's Board of Regents: Mark Bernstein, a lawyer and a Democrat.

Berstein told Confessore, "D.E.I. here is absolutely well-intentioned, extremely thoughtful in its conception and design."

He added, "But it’s so virtuous that it’s escaped accountability in a lot of ways."

One University of Michigan student called the school's DEI efforts "superficial" and added that, despite the institution’s programs, they betrayed "a general discomfort with naming Blackness explicitly."

"Everyday campus complaints and academic disagreements, professors and students told me, were now cast as crises of inclusion and harm, each demanding some further administrative intervention or expansion," Confessore wrote.

"On a campus consumed with institutional self-criticism, seemingly the only thing to avoid a true reckoning was D.E.I. itself."

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