Another “quick takes” on items where there is too little to say to make a complete article, but is still important enough to comment on.
The focus this time: They’re not saying it’s DEI, but it’s DEI
First, a little mood music:
Carrying on…
When you have to cut your budget… you keep your DEI payroll?
“Portland State University is eliminating two academic departments and 36 full-time positions as it confronts a $35 million deficit, while it and two other Oregon public universities maintain more than 90 DEI-related positions costing more than $7.2 million annually.
“PSU will eliminate its Conflict Resolution and University Studies departments and reduce six others under its final plan. The university says 36 full-time positions will be involuntarily eliminated and three more reduced to part time.
“Meanwhile, PSU, Oregon State University, and the University of Oregon maintain 92 DEI-related positions costing a combined $7,255,758, an Oregon Scholars analysis of university salary data found.”
Wokeness over correct English, ‘twould seem.
“When Maya Parthasarathy, a student editor at the University of California, Berkeley’s law journal, the California Law Review, applied for the journal’s admissions committee in 2025, she knew exactly what her colleagues wanted to hear.
“A former deputy at Politico, where she oversaw the hiring of entry-level journalists, Parthasarathy explained how her experience in media would help her promote “diversity, equity, and inclusion” at the University of California, Berkeley’s flagship law journal, which selects eight editors each year to evaluate candidates for the law review.
“‘When I first joined [Politico], I realized that the newsroom lacked the diversity necessary to reduce bias and improve our content,’ Parthasarathy wrote in her application to the admissions committee. To fix the problem, she said, her team at Politico ‘did not consider grades,’ instead creating a ‘holistic’ review process that included, among other things, an editing test.
“‘For candidates on the borderline of a passing score on our test, we considered strengths they showed in other parts of their applications, and experiences they would bring to the table,’ Parthasarathy said. ‘At the end of my tenure at Politico, our team had grown from just one person of color — me — to fifty percent hires from underrepresented backgrounds.’”
You don’t have to put in writing that you are committed to DEI, you just have to be committed to DEI.
“The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) tells applicants in an official job-ad template a successful candidate will support ‘diversity, equity, and inclusiveness,’ but the public university told Campus Reform it does not require diversity statements and only ‘broadly encourage[s]’ applicants to consider its campus values in the course of their work.
“UNLV spokesperson Keyonna Summers characterized the provision as a ‘general disclosure’ that “broadly encourages applicants” to consider the university’s ‘campus values.’
“UNLV’s strategic plan, Top Tier 2.0, states that one of the university’s strategic objectives is to adopt the National Association of System Heads (NASH) framework, specifically its ‘Equity Practice for Equity in Hiring and Retention of Faculty and Staff.’”
TTFN.
