UNCW dismantles DEI positions, redirects almost $1.5 million to help students
UNCW was complying with a Board of Governors directive to promote ‘nondiscrimination, equality of opportunity, institutional neutrality, academic freedom and student success.’
The school saved almost $1.5 million as a result of the move, which will now go to benefiting student life on campus.
The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) has eliminated several Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) positions at the school and redirected the money to help students.
On Aug. 8, UNCW Chancellor Aswani K. Volety announced that, to conform with a UNC Board of Governors directive to promote “nondiscrimination, equality of opportunity, institutional neutrality, academic freedom and student success,” the school will shutter its Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion (OIDI).
Volety and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Christine Reed Davis released a report on Aug. 30 explaining UNCW’s compliance with the anti-DEI mandate in more detail.
[RELATED: Northern Kentucky University closes down DEI office amid nationwide anti-DEI campaign]
The report explains that school administration “eliminated 16 permanent positions which were previously organized within the [OIDI].”
The Chief Diversity Officer, according to the report, will now be working as a professor at the Watson College of Education.
Other positions that have been eliminated and their current holders reassigned elsewhere include the Director of the Centro Hispano, which supports “Hispanic/Latino students,” the Director of the LGBTQIA Resource Center, the Senior Assistant Director of Diversity Initiatives, and the Diversity and Inclusion Outreach Coordinator.
Some students organized a protest against the school’s DEI crackdown in late August, with one student saying: “You are taking those positions away, and we feel attacked.”
[RELATED: Stanford class forces applicants to submit DEI statement]
The report details that the termination of the 16 DEI positions will result in an extra $1.45 million for the university “in salary and benefits savings annually.” The surplus will go to “the creation of 5 new positions within Student Engagement, Enrollment and Retention,” support new high-level prepositions in the Department of Campus Life, and support “need-based financial aid, which directly aligns with the UNC System’s priority metrics pertaining to student access and success.”
A UNCW spokesperson told Campus Reform: “UNCW moved the cultural and identity centers to the Division of Student Affairs to enhance their roles as resources for student success. The university adjusted staffing in the centers as a part of their new organizational structure because their operational needs changed, including the content and type of their programming.”
“The centers now have the expertise and resources of a full division behind them. They went from being part of a small office with 16 permanent employees to being part of a large division with 188 permanent employees dedicated to serving students,” the spokesperson continued.
