Students pay price for UM diversity goals (2019)

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/editorials/2019/01/08/editorial-students-pay-price-um-diversity-goals/2481970002/

by EvgeniyZh • 5 years ago

22 12 5 years ago

detroitnews.com

908B64B1972• 5 years ago

Total salary, including benefits, for UM diversity employees amounts to $10.6 million, and that doesn’t take into account overhead, travel or outreach costs. This sum is the equivalent of full in-state tuition for about 700 students.

Can you imagine how a full ride scholarship could have impacted not only the lives of 700 disadvantaged teens of all colors from the state, but inspired those around them, their friends and families?

After the passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative in 2006, public institutions, including universities, can no longer discriminate based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. That means universities are banned from using affirmative action in their admissions policies. Nor can they offer race or gender-based aid. So universities are turning to other options.

Maybe the people of Michigan should make it more explicit in the law. "turning to other options" sounds a lot like trying to bypass the law...

drewcoo• 5 years ago

Goodness! Is that slightly more or slightly less than the singular UM football coach Jim Harbaugh is making this year? Imagine if that money were spent on paying the teaching staff living wages . . .

Somehow I don't think I proved anything here either.

908B64B1972• 5 years ago

Is that slightly more or slightly less than the singular UM football coach Jim Harbaugh is making this year?

Football is bringing a lot of money in at a lot of State Schools...

And I honestly think a strong athletic program might do more for diversity than almost 80 employees that are working hard toward skirting the law.

rohitb91• 5 years ago

It’s a hustle.

akomtu• 5 years ago

These DEI councils remind me prof. Umbridge from Harry Potter.

wayanon• 5 years ago

What would help my understanding is knowing what diversity staff do that increases diversity among students.

danuker• 5 years ago

Yet black students still remain at just 5 percent of the student population; Hispanic students are 6 percent.

Apparently not much.

theevilsharpie• 5 years ago

This is (probably) off-topic, but I wanted to touch on it anyway, because it jumped out at me.

The topic of the article is as follows:

Editorial: Students pay high price for UM diversity goals

The title explicitly lists this as an editorial, rather than factual report.

The article also lists in the header:

EDITORIAL | Opinion This piece expresses the views of its author(s), separate from those of this publication.

So the paper is being very clear that this is someone's opinion that they're publishing, rather than the position of the paper.

However, there is no authorship information for this article that I could find (other than a photographer's credit for the image), nor does the article specifically state this it was published by an anonymous author. It simply says "The Detroit News," which implies that the article was authored by the paper's editorial staff, which contradicts the statement that the piece doesn't represent the views of the publication.

Is this fake news? As far as I can tell, The Detroit News is a legitimate (if slightly conservative-leaning) paper, and the OP's article is on their domain. So why hide the author(s) of an opinion piece?

indrora• 5 years ago

Conjecture, but backed up by the experiences I had with Journalism classes in college, part of my major:

Such pieces are typically written by a high-ranking individual within the publication, but they wish to deflect the backlash that can come from writing such a piece, so the "staff" name is used to shield the writer from criticism.

It's mostly Must-Run content: Content that a funding source or otherwise powerful position within the organization has deemed must be printed. Must-Run content is commonly used to burn or otherwise redirect vitriol, or more often establish a common message among many publications. Such things are also used to push local news outlets to [tow a line](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fHfgU8oMSo) by their parent organizations (such as Sinclair Media group)

In the case of staff revolting, it's used to shield the individuals. In the case of a single high ranking individual, it's used to shield the individual by forcing the group to take the hit.

The practice is common enough it is [regularly a topic of discussion in citation styles](https://penandthepad.com/cite-editorial-author-4970.html).

prirun• 5 years ago

This does not sound like opinion:

"Mark Perry, professor of finance and business economics at the University of Michigan-Flint, says administrative bloat is hurting higher education.

Perry used Department of Education data to find that between 1976 and 2011, the number of U.S. college students increased by 91 percent, while the number of full-time college administrators increased by 139 percent, compared to an increase in the number of full-time faculty of only 76 percent."

bell-cot• 5 years ago

Providing cushy jobs for loads of well-paid administrators seems to be a primary goal of universities these days. Most of that is probably due to cronyism-type social effects. But some of it is (at minimum) strongly encouraged by the mobs of high-education low-function ideologues (HELFI's) which universities seem to attract - zealous about forcing the university to very publicly "demonstrate a commitment" to some ideal of theirs; far less interested in achieving useful results.

If the actual goal was diversity of UM graduates (vs. admitting "look good for the moment" students who aren't likely to succeed at UM), then the money should be spent on (for instance) a "catch-up" prep school, open to the top-3% graduates of the poorest high schools in the state. (Then offer UM admission to the top $n graduates of that prep school, or some such.) But when "just give lip service and hire a bunch more administrators" is a fast and foolproof way to both appease the HELFI's and grow the administrative bloat - why should any university try something which might actually work...but is slow and un-sexy and kinda-complex?

twofornone• 5 years ago

Yet black students still remain at just 5 percent of the student population; Hispanic students are 6 percent.

No amount of reverse racism is going to solve the pipeline problem. This "diversity" movement is totally disconnected from reality. The result is a growing army of angry, disenfranchised white men, and a lower caliber of graduates across the board. Society does not benefit from awarding doctors/scientists/engineers diplomas because of the color of their skin or their sexual preferences.

Students pay price for UM diversity goals (2019)

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