DEI: a 30-Day Update

Monday marked the 30-day deadline for University of Virginia President Jim Ryan to report back to the Board of Visitors about what he had done to execute on the board’s directive to dismantle the university’s DEI bureaucracy and end racial preferences.

Ryan did, in fact, submit a report to the Board. Of course, as has become standard practice, the administration declined to release it to the public. Bacon’s Rebellion was advised to try filing a Freedom of Information Act request.

Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth University, and George Mason University also are shutting down their DEI programs, and their strategies are likely to bear similarities to UVA’s. Given the fact that the universities are dismantling DEI under coercion from the Trump administration, which is threatening to yank hundreds of millions of federal research dollars if they do not comply, one can predict a minimum of enthusiasm for the mandate and a maximum of foot dragging and obfuscation.

I have no idea of what Ryan told the Board. But I thought it worthwhile to update members of the public on the little that outsiders can deduce of what UVA has accomplished so far.

There are superficial signs of change at Mr. Jefferson’s University, but it is too early to tell whether UVA will abide with the spirit of the directive or subvert it through pettifoggery, literalism or malicious compliance.

The indisputable news is that UVA has taken down its university-level “Office of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion” website. DEI offices of some academic units either have taken down their websites or rebranded them. Other web pages appear to be works in progress. The education school, for instance, still has a page tagged with “office-diversity-equity-and-inclusion” in its URL but has replaced the content with the words, “Access Denied.”

The Darden School of Business has moved with considerable alacrity, rebranding its DEI page as “Inclusive Excellence” and stating that the school is “living out our values as an inclusive global community.”

Darden could well provide the prototype for the University as a whole by emphasizing diversity and inclusion, both of which are relatively uncontroversial, and by jettisoning “equity,” which is entangled with the leftist doctrine of intersectional oppression, support for social-justice activism, and the conviction that UVA is still racist and has historical wrongs to rectify.

But reformulating website messaging is largely cosmetic — a reworking of wording rather than changing substance and redirecting dollars. As the business aphorism goes, personnel is policy. The big question is what has happened to the employees of the no-longer-extant DEI offices? Have the jobs been eliminated, or have they just been switched to new boxes on the org chart?

Bacon’s Rebellion took a look at the employees who were listed last year by Open the Books in what was then called the Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Community Partnerships. Here follows their current status, as best we can determine from Web searches. (I have excluded the names of lower- and mid-level employees to protect their privacy.)

Kevin McDonald
Vice President for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Community Partnerships
McDonald is now listed as “Principal investigator” of the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation. The Alliance Office is located in Washington Hall, still described on the web page as the “Office for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.”

Rachel Spraker
Assistant Vice President for Equity and Inclusive Excellence
Spraker has the same title but is now listed under UVA’s Office for Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights.

Chief of Staff
This employee’s LinkedIn profile still provides the same title. Her UVA website profile has been scrubbed, but she is still listed on the UVA Public People Search with same title and DEI-office affiliation.

Director of Communications
This employee’s LinkedIn profile describes her job with the same title. Her UVA website profile has been deleted, but she is still listed on UVA Public People Search with same title and affiliation with the DEI office.

Director of Business Operations and Grants Management
This person also has moved to the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation, where she is listed as a member of the management team with the same title as she had with the DEI office.

Senior Director for Grants Administration and Strategic Partnerships
This employee, too, is listed as a member of the management team of the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation. Her new title: Program Director and Co-Principal Investigator

Director of Diversity Education
This employee’s LinkedIn profile provides the same title, and it still lists him as “full-time.” His UVA profile has been scrubbed, but UVA Public People Search still lists him as having the same title with the DEI Office.

Assistant Director for Assessment and Data Analytics
This employee’s LinkedIn profile lists the same title. Her UVA profile has been excised, but she is still listed on UVA Public People Search with the same title as she had with the DEI office.

Community Partnerships Manager
This employee’s LinkedIn profile lists her with the same title as she had in the DEI office. Her UVA profile has been scrubbed, but she is listed on UVA Public People Search as affiliated with the DEI office with the same title.

Senior Special Assistant
This employee’s LinkedIn profile lists her as “Manager for DEI.” It appears that she has made the leap to the School of Education and Human Development, where she is described on the website as the school’s Manager for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Project Manager
This employee’s LinkedIn profile describes him as a “holistic wellness advocate” without identifying the employer. His UVA profile has been scrubbed, but UVA Public People Search lists him with the same title at the DEI office.

Administrative Assistant to the VP and Chief Officer for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
This employee’s LinkedIn profile describes her as an “executive administrative assistant” without identifying an employer. Her UVA profile has been scrubbed, but UVA Public People Search lists the same title and affiliation with the DEI office.

Education and Outreach Specialist
This person’s LinkedIn profile describes him as “tribal liaison.” His UVA profile has been scrubbed, but UVA Public People Search gives him the same title and DEI office affiliation.

Program Manager
This employee is now listed as Program Manager with the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation.

Temp D
This person is listed as “Temp D” working for the Connection and Belonging Office. The Connection Project is designed to “combat the epidemic of loneliness and social disconnection” in the undergraduate residential experience.

Events and Venue Planner
This employee’s LinkedIn profile lists her as Events and Programming Assistant at UVA. Her DEI profile has been scrubbed but UVA Public People Search lists her as having the same title and DEI-office affiliation.

Descendant Profile Researcher
This person’s LinkedIn profile describes her job as Descendant Project Researcher at UVA. Her UVA profile has been scrubbed, but UVA Public People Search lists her as affiliated with the Gibbons Project as a “descendant project researcher.” The Gibbons Project, founded in 2022, conducts archival and genealogical research into the lives of enslaved laborers at UVA.

Perhaps the most interesting development for DEI watchers is the move by UVA’s former DEI chief Kevin McDonald and three of his colleagues to the Virginia-North Carolina Alliance for Minority Participation. McDonald is the lead investigator for the alliance, which is supported by a $3 million National Science Foundation grant extending from 2023 to 2028.

According to the grant summary, “the Alliance will implement activities to support student success by improving retention, participation in undergraduate research, and the overall number of historically underrepresented populations graduating with STEM degrees from the eleven Alliance institutions.”

Also of interest, the Office of Equity and Civil Rights, a federally mandated entity that had been housed within the University’s DEI Office, has been spun off as a free-standing entity. That office at UVA enforces state and federal regulations regarding sex, race, and disabilities.

Judging by their LinkedIn profiles and UVA Public People Search, all other employees of the now-defunct DEI office remain employed at UVA in one capacity or another. A reasonable surmise is that the administration is keeping them on the payroll until a permanent home for them can be found elsewhere in the bureaucracy. However, it is also possible that UVA plans to eliminate their positions but has given them notice and is keeping them on the books until that notice runs out. There is no way for outsiders to know. We will endeavor to check back in a month or two and see where the DEI employees end up.