Why Can’t the University of Virginia Tell the Truth About Its $1 Billion DEI Plan?
The Jefferson Council champions free speech and intellectual diversity at the University of Virginia. We welcome columns, op-eds, and letters addressing issues affecting the UVA community for publication on our guest forum, like the one submitted below.
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EXCERPT
Recently, our auditors at OpenTheBooks.com found that the University of Virginia (UVA) employed 235 people in roles related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) costing taxpayers some $20 million for salaries and benefits last year.
Our report broke in the Washington Examiner and made national news. It hit multiple primetime shows on Fox News, the nightly news on the nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox affiliates of Sinclair Broadcast Group, a retweet by Elon Musk, and a hearing by the US House subcommittee on Education and the Workforce.
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UVA is in the midst of a $1 billion DEI program. Student tuition, progressive third-party foundations, and taxpayer money fund this massive initiative.
However, the tenets of DEI are fundamentally anti-American and radical. DEI is rightly seen as divisive, cutting at the fabric of “E pluribus Unum.”
DEI judges the color of one’s skin, not the content – and competence – of one’s character. Merit and equal opportunity are tossed aside as racist. Instead, a neo-Marxist concept of “equal outcomes” is imposed on all social relationships.
Students, taxpayers and all who care about learning can look to Florida as the beacon of a new day. One may hope that Virginia, the birthplace of our Constitutional republic, home to birth places of individual rights and freedoms in America, will emulate the model.
Adam Andrzejewski is the founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks.com with the mission: “Every Dime, Online, In Real Time.”
