U Miami's 15-point anti-racism plan includes massive bureaucracy expansion
The school did not respond to multiple requests asking how it plans to pay for the plan.
The University of Miami released a 15 point plan to resist the "persistence of systemic racial injustice."
Meanwhile, the school received millions in CARES Act funding and is raising tuition.
University of Miami President Julio Frenk released a message detailing initiatives that the university will be taking to fight “institutionalized anti-Black racism.”
The university will create a new cabinet-level position, reporting to the president, on “racial justice.” One of the duties of the special advisor will be to work with “a new Task Force to Promote Racial Justice at the Miller School of Medicine to facilitate a formal, multi-year strategic plan that increases recruitment and retention of Black faculty, staff, and students.”
There will also be a newly appointed Diversity Officer for the Department of Athletics who will “be responsible for implementing a diversity and inclusion plan” for student-athletes and the athletic department.
To increase the recruitment and retention of “under-represented faculty, specifically Black faculty members,” the university will establish a new Office for Faculty Inclusion and Diversity. The university said in the coming years, “at least 80 percent of faculty searches will have diverse candidates not just among applicants, but among finalists.”
[RELATED: Students sue University of Miami and Drexel University over tuition controversy]
The university will create a Center for Global Black Studies. Using a grant from the Mellon Foundation, the university can pursue new “initiatives addressing structural racism and structural inequalities.” There will also be further efforts towards “understanding of individual, institutional, and structural racism.” Funds will be used to have different interdisciplinary departments work together on studies about racism.
The university will “commit to creating specific incentives for Black and minority-owned businesses” to hold itself accountable in its diversity objectives. It will also have a “targeted outreach efforts to minority candidates via job boards,” which will help in the efforts to “conduct an annual, internal demographic audit.”
Beginning in January 2021, the university will purchase and implement a mandatory “Diversity and Inclusion module for all students.” This will include training on how to identify and combat “implicit racial bias, microaggressions, and how to engage in the necessary yet difficult conversations around structural racism, abuse of power, and societal healing for students.”
Frenk noted that these initiatives “are not an end product; they are a starting point.”
The University of Miami did not respond to Campus Reform’s repeated requests for the cost of implementing the multiple part plan.
Meanwhile, the University of Miami received more than $8.1 million in federal taxpayer funding as part of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. Furthermore, the school charged $51,930 for tuition and fees during the 2019-2020 academic year, according to U.S. News and World Report. Tuition for the 2020-2021 school year is $53,682, according to the school’s website.
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