DEI course mandates at public universities are costing taxpayers and students $1.8 billion – and as much as $3.8 billion – plus 40 million man-hours in required classes, a new report by the Goldwater Institute (GI) found.
GI’s research discovered that public universities from at least 30 states require a DEI course in order to graduate. State lawmakers provide even more funding for the courses than the Biden administration.
Furthermore, the report observed that the free speech advocacy organization Speech First said that 67 percent of U.S. colleges and universities require students to take a DEI course. Parents Defending Education also revealed that the Department of Education awarded over $1 billion in grant funding for DEI courses within the past four years to K-12 schools and universities.
Additionally, “[P]ublic university faculty senate bodies have forced degree-specific DEI content to be embedded into all majors and/or given financial kickbacks to professors who infuse DEI content into their existing classes.” Due to this aspect, the total cost is “likely dramatically greater” than the $2 billion estimate.
The report listed some of the most outrageous courses. The University of Virginia’s “‘Hateinnany’: Fascism, Antifascism, and the Global Far Right” discusses President Donald Trump in terms of “far right politics” and “fascism.”
The course description provides, “The 2010s saw an explosion of interest in the growth of the global far right. From the rise to power of right-wing populists like Narendra Modi in India, Viktor Orbán in Hungary, Boris Johnson in Great Britain, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and of course Donald Trump in America…focusing primarily on Western Europe and North America, but paying close attention to the concept of ‘empire,’ its importance in the right-wing imagination in imperial states, and the impact of decolonization on far-right politics and what develops into the self-described ‘white power’ movement at the end of the century.”
At the University of San Diego, for faculty to obtain approval to teach one a DEI course, they must satisfactorily answer, “Does the course examine the intersection of inequity based on dimensions of identity such as class, gender, LGBTQ identities, disability, citizenship, colonialism, and/or religion?” Additionally, “at least 30% of a course’s content should be devoted to the analysis of inequity with respect to one or more of the following groups: African American/Black Diaspora; Asian American and Pacific Islanders; LatinX/Chicanx; and Native Americans/Indigenous.”
The university pays its faculty bonuses for teaching DEI courses. The policy states, “To provide course diversity and encourage new courses, Senate faculty may be provided $1,500 for new or substantially revised courses approved by UGC to fulfill the DEI requirement.”
At the University of Maryland, every major is required to “embed DEI content into its core classwork.”
Some universities like the University of Arizona require “all diversity- and equity-branded courses to feature discussions of oppression and social justice, rather than simply awareness of other civilizations or cultures.” The policy states, “Classes with the Diversity and Equity Attribute will focus on issues such as racism, classism, sexism, ableism, imperialism, colonialism, transphobia, xenophobia, and other structured inequities. It is our responsibility as Wildcats to promote greater social equity.”
The report found that some universities deceptively label DEI. Iowa State University calls its program “U.S. Cultures and Communities,” but it directs students to explore “intersectional understandings of diversity” and “analyze systemic oppression and personal prejudice and their impact on marginalized communities and the broader U.S. society.” The University of California, Berkeley titles its DEI courses “American Cultures.”
The report observed that scholars including “Dr. Jay Greene of the Heritage Foundation have likewise demonstrated that university DEI staff often outnumber the faculty of various departments.”
GI pointed out that taxpayers fund much of it because tuition doesn’t cover all of a student’s education. “[A]s public universities such as the University of Texas at Austin are often quick to remind state legislators, ‘Less than half the cost of a student’s education is covered by tuition.’”
The average cost to each institution is as much as $53 million, GI found. Across the country, the total cost could be as high as $3.8 billion.
The report noted that DEI proponents admit that if DEI courses became optional, students wouldn’t opt to take them. Professor Katie Rainwater, whose DEI course was removed from the University of Florida system, complained to The New York Times. “They’re starving undergraduate enrollment in our courses,” she said. “The worry is they’ll then be able to take away whole programs and justify it by saying courses aren’t filling up.”
GI responded, “In other words, faculty recognize that much of the demand for their activist course content is propped up only by forcing students into limited selections of classes that include these offerings.”
GI offered a couple of recommendations at the end of the report. First, the think tank said states should pass laws modeled after Florida’s law eliminating DEI classes from the general education catalog at state universities. Second, GI recommended that states adopt its Freedom from Indoctrination Act, which eliminates DEI requirements in public universities at all levels, including degree specific requirements.
– – –
Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to rachel.r.alexander@gmail.com.
