Until UW–Madison fully dissolves its DEI apparatus, divisive ideologies and petty bureaucrats will continue to have too much influence on campus.
T he University of Wisconsin–Madison announced that its DEI office will “sunset as a freestanding division” in an email to its students and employees on Wednesday. Unfortunately, DEI is dead in name only.
While UW–Madison’s Division of Diversity, Equity, and Educational Achievement (DDEEA) is no longer independent, most of its operations are merely being shifted to other places. Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin said its responsibilities and personnel would be divided between the Division for Teaching and Learning, the human-resources department, and the data collection office.
According to the Daily Cardinal, one of UW–Madison’s student newspapers, fewer than ten of the approximately 100 DDEEA employees were laid off. If the university were serious about abandoning DEI, far more superfluous positions would have been eliminated entirely.
Mnookin also wrote that Associate Dean Percival Matthews, who was earlier this year appointed “special advisor on access and community,” is leading a group of “school, college and division leaders” to advise the university administration on “how we can support an internal culture that is inclusive, fair, and supports excellence and opportunity.”
Matthews’s appointment further suggests that the university has no intention of changing its ways, and not just because he has worked as a DEI administrator for years. As I originally reported for the Madison Federalist, Matthews recently co-authored “Fostering diversity in mathematics cognition,” an academic paper that alleges that the American mathematics education system is “arguably inherently violent toward Black children” and said the Supreme Court decision that ended affirmative action is “a suggestion that many trainees of color do not deserve to be in the university space at all.” Matthews has also made Facebook posts that accused Donald Trump of racism and defended the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots.
The national environment certainly played a role in the reshuffling of the DDEEA. Mnookin implicitly acknowledged as much. A memo she cited in her email recommended reorganization “given the evolution of our support ecosystem” and “legal shifts in permissible focus.” This is a clear reference to the Trump administration’s warning to universities that they must end DEI or risk losing federal funding.
UW–Madison is one of 60 universities under investigation by the Department of Education for its handling of antisemitism on campus, and among the 50 universities under investigation for sponsoring race-based fellowships or scholarships. After the University of Pennsylvania was forced to apologize for putting a man on the women’s swimming team, and the University of Virginia president resigned amid a federal investigation into its DEI practices, it’s not unreasonable to assume that UW–Madison’s dissolution of the DDEEA was also an attempt to make peace with the president.
However, the story is not that simple.
In January, UW–Madison’s vice chancellor for inclusive excellence, LaVar Charleston, was demoted after an internal review found that he had a pattern of “poor decision-making” and approved many questionable expenses for the DDEEA. He handed out more than $200,000 in “lump sum awards” to DDEEA employees and gave bonuses to 85 percent of his staff. The DDEEA spent the most “on travel, training, and events of any unit on campus,” including $18,000 for student massage therapy services and $14,000 for a trip to Maui.
Charleston’s indiscretions were only possible because the university gave him almost no supervision. The report said, “Too much deference was given to decisions by divisional leadership and adequate oversight mechanisms were not in place.” This is an astounding statement, as the university employs one administrator for every four undergraduates. Despite immense administrative bloat, university leadership didn’t detect the obvious financial misconduct for months.
Even more frustrating is that Charleston was ill-suited for a leadership role in the first place. The Washington Free Beacon reported that he passed off old studies as new research multiple times throughout his career. He was also charged with assaulting a police officer in 2011 but avoided conviction through a deferred prosecution program. Despite these transgressions, Charleston’s tenure means he was not fired and retains a position in the School of Education.
Moreover, the Wisconsin state legislature released an audit in April that showed that the entire University of Wisconsin system failed to track millions in spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. The audit estimated that UW institutions spent upwards of $40 million on DEI in fiscal year 2023–24, with more than half of the spending occurring on the Madison campus. Some of the 435 DEI activities found at UW–Madison included a plan to “decolonize the Dance Department curriculum,” a research project to examine “whether and why states with female governors had fewer COVID-19 deaths than states with male governors,” and the establishment of a major in “Chican@ & Latin@ studies.” Nearly 1,300 DEI initiatives were found across the UW system.
National Review started pursuing this story in mid-June, with the original intention of covering the search for Charleston’s replacement. University provost Charles Isbell Jr. temporarily took over the DDEEA after Charleston’s departure, but he was named the chancellor of another college. A UW–Madison spokeswoman initially told NR on June 23 that the incoming interim provost will also lead the DDEEA, but she did not answer multiple inquiries about how the search process for a permanent chief DEI officer would be conducted. Whether it was already decided at this point or not, this search was never going to happen.
It is beneficial for the academic culture of the University of Wisconsin that the overbearing DEI department will be decentralized, but there is still considerable work to be done. Mnookin in her email said, “Diversity of all kinds, including diversity of viewpoint and diversity of identity and background, remains a core value of our university,” but the faculty is composed almost entirely of progressives. If the university truly cares about diversity, it should start by challenging ideological hegemony on campus.
In the end, UW–Madison is doing little more than administrative trickery by abolishing the DDEEA. It is not unique in this respect — a report from the College Fix found that nearly 90 universities have recently changed the names of their DEI offices. Furthermore, UW Health, the integrated health system of UW–Madison, openly declared in May that it was simply rebranding DEI as “social impact and belonging.” While the era of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is over, the regressive ideology it represents will operate in the shadows under new euphemisms.
Until the University of Wisconsin–Madison fully dissolves its DEI apparatus, divisive ideologies and petty bureaucrats will continue to have too much influence on campus. Only sustained pressure from Wisconsin voters, legislators, and students can ensure that DEI’s wasteful legacy finally comes to an end.