UNL to close Office of Diversity and Inclusion as part of reorganization (2024)

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln will dissolve its Office of Diversity and Inclusion and eliminate the vice chancellor position that directed its efforts, administrators said on Tuesday.

UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett said the change, which was announced to faculty and staff in an email, comes as part of a broader restructuring of the executive leadership team for the state's largest public university campus.

"I fully grasp the weight of this decision and its implications," Bennett wrote, "but a centralized approach to this work is no longer right for our institution."

The $750,000 annual budget of the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which was previously subjected to budget cuts implemented last year, will also be reabsorbed into UNL. The five staff members who worked in the office will be allowed to apply for vacant positions across campus, administrators said.

In an interview with the Journal Star, Bennett said the nationwide trend that started 10 to 15 years ago of colleges and universities establishing offices of diversity and inclusion and hiring administrators to lead them has shifted.

"I think during that period, perhaps, a goal was met and those offices have served the campuses well," said Bennett, who is entering his second year leading UNL. "But there certainly has been a shift."

Offices focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, commonly referred to as DEI, have been shuttered at public and private universities across the country in recent years, as their efforts have come under fire from lawmakers in conservative states.

On Tuesday, the University of Kentucky announced it would also be closing its Office of Institutional Diversity after the state legislature considered legislation targeting those programs.

UK President Eli Capilouto told the Lexington Herald-Leader the move was made after he received feedback from lawmakers who expressed concern about the programs, despite legislation failing in the statehouse.

A handful of states— Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Texas, Utah and Wyoming— have banned DEI offices and programs in higher education altogether, as conservatives said those efforts have raised racial and gender identities over individual merit, creating their own kind of discrimination along the way.

The backlash gained strength after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that race-conscious admissions at public and private colleges and universities were unconstitutional, opening the door for challenges from several groups against diversity programs on campuses.

While Nebraska lawmakers have introduced legislation to prohibit diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at the state's public institutions, as well as to block any public money from being used in those offices, those bills have not advanced from committee to the floor for debate.

Bennett said he spent much of his first year talking and listening with people around UNL's campus and the state about their expectations for the state's only land-grant, flagship university campus about the best way forward when it comes to diversity and inclusion programs.

"I like to be and I like this university, as the leader of higher education across the state, to be in charge of its own narrative," he said. "To chart the path and create the model and really be trailblazers of what the future looks like.

"That's what led me here."

Bennett said eliminating the office would provide a small savings to UNL, but he explained that did not drive the decision. The Office of Diversity and Inclusion accounted for less than 1% of the campus's total budget, what Bennett called "a shoestring budget from the beginning."

"It really isn't about the budget as it is about the reach," he said. "We have the greatest opportunity to reach more people with a model that's not centralized."

Formed in response to racist incidents

According to news reports at the time, those incidents included:

* A student using a racial slur repeatedly during a meeting of the Association of Students of the University of Nebraska.

* Racist messages were written on the sidewalk outside the Nebraska Union.

* A homecoming skit included racial and ethnic stereotypes that students and others found offensive.

In 2014, then-Chancellor Harvey Perlman announced his intention to hire a chief diversity officer, joining more than 30 colleges and universities across the country.

Seen as a successor position to the “vice president for minority affairs” which was used in the 1970s and 1980s as more Black students enrolled in colleges nationwide, UNL’s position was seen as a way to implement a strategic plan around improving diversity and inclusion on campus.

Andre Fortune, who was director of the Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center at UNL at the time, said the office would need to thread two needles.

First, it would need to focus its efforts on improving the campus climate for students of color, international students, as well as LGBT students. Fortune said the office would also need to include “majority students” in its conversations to foster more understanding and inclusion on campus.

In November 2018, former Chancellor Ronnie Green — Perlman’s successor —announced Marco Barker would become UNL’s inaugural vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion.

Barker, who came to UNL from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, considered Utah’s most diverse institution of higher education, started in the position on April 1, 2019. His starting salary was $250,000, which was below the midpoint for chief diversity officers in the Big Ten Conference.

The Office of Diversity and Inclusion was initially appropriated with $338,000 in state funds to hire staff, $26,460 for operational costs, and $100,000 to develop programming for UNL students, faculty and staff.

A year later, in 2020, the office was part of Green’s initiative to combat racism on UNL’s campus following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer by examining curriculum, student recruitment and hiring and retention practices.

That work, which was led by UNL faculty and others, as well as a subsequent plan for addressing institutional racism and improving diversity at UNL, drew fire from conservative lawmakers and members of the NU Board of Regents, however.

Seizing upon a broader national backlash to critical race theory, then-Regent Jim Pillen sought to end “any imposition” of the academic field that focuses on systemic inequalities resulting from racial discrimination that is generally taught in law schools or at the graduate level at NU.

Not end of diversity efforts

Bennett's announcement was welcome news to state Sen. Dave Murman of Glenvil, who chairs the Legislature's Education Committee and introduced a bill (LB1330) last year that sought to ban DEI initiatives at UNL and elsewhere.

"I think that's a great move," Murman said. "I don't think whether we are talking about hiring or recruiting students that those things should be based on race or gender."

But Joy Castro, a professor of English and ethnic studies at UNL who also serves as the director for the Institute of Ethnic Studies, said she was "shocked, pained and deeply concerned" by the dissolution of both the office and position.

"I can imagine that the chancellor is under tremendous pressure, and I empathize," Castro said in an email. "At the same time, I'm concerned about the impact this decision will have upon the morale of many students, staff, and faculty at UNL —and upon potential future members of our community who may well, in light of this decision, decide to make their academic or employment homes elsewhere."

Castro, who was tapped by Perlman a decade ago to study what a chief diversity officer at UNL would look like, said the office was "crucially necessary," and she was eager to see how diversity and inclusion efforts would look in the future.

"While I am deeply concerned about the decision, I do love reimagining the possible, and I can envision many different positive ways forward," Castro said. "The UNL community needs clarity about what this reimagining will entail and who will be included in the planning process."

In his email to campus, Bennett said UNL would "steadfastly uphold the principle that every person and every interaction matters," referring to the overarching theme of a strategic plan published under Green's tenure as chancellor.

Bennett said UNL would continue to recruit and support faculty, staff and students from all backgrounds and identities, and would continue to support the ongoing efforts of several existing diversity offices on campus.

The Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center will remain open and active, he said, as will the Institute of Ethnic Studies, the Women's Resource Center and LGBT Resource Center. UNL will also continue offering courses in the women and gender studies program, among others.

Instead, Bennett said he wanted UNL's 6,000-plus employees to shoulder efforts to reach students, no matter their identity, adding he believes those interactions between people who know and work with each other regularly would bear more fruit.

"It is incumbent on each of us to foster a welcoming environment for all members of our community," he said.

Other offices will also take on additional responsibilities, Bennett wrote in his email to campus. The Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor will be responsible for building and supporting a sense of community on campus for faculty; the Office of Business and Finance will do the same for staff; and the renamed Office of Student Life would do so for students.

Bennett said some of those efforts have already begun.

UNL will also take the existing Diversity Advisory Board, which includes external stakeholders, and transform it into the Chancellor's Advisory Board on Community and Belonging, he said.

Bennett, who is the first person of color named to the top administrator position at UNL, said he didn't reach his conclusion to close the Office of Diversity and Inclusion lightly.

"The fact of how some may see us dissolving that office is not lost on me, that we in some opinions have abandoned core principles of equity and diversity and inclusion," he said. "I would say those people are wrong in that conclusion.

"I see us adapting to the environment that we're in, and I see us expanding the expectation of every member of our community in having a role in the success of UNL and the success of our students."