With the Board of Regents' recent approval of 10 recommendations to make cuts, Iowa's three public universities are expected to scale back DEI initiatives. But Ohio State University (OSU) is going the opposite direction.
In 2018, OSU had 88 staffers in the diversity, equity, and inclusion department at an annual cost of $7.3 million. Today, taxpayers are paying for 189 DEI employees at an annual cost of more than $20 million.
This year, after raising tuition by 4.6%, 3.3%, and 5.5% in 2022, 2019, and 2017 respectively, the school raised tuition by 3%. Housing and meal plan costs have also been hiked over the same time span. Meanwhile, at least seven DEI administrators make more than $200,000 per year, and another 33 staffers earn more than $100,000 annually.
The university could reportedly use that $20.38 million to fund 1,586 students' annual tuition, but instead, Linda Harvey of Mission America says it is using it to diminish its quality of education.
"The more time [and money] you devote to this, it obviously will take away from things where you could actually be learning skills," she submits. "Our college students need to be extremely well equipped to go into the workplace."
Conservative attorney and podcast host Jenna Ellis advises parents to think very carefully before sending their kids and their money to a secular university like OSU, where tax dollars are "going to indoctrinate our children with leftist, Marxist, Maoist, mentality."
In an effort to correct this in his state, Ohio Senator Jerry Cirino (R) has introduced S.B. 83 to, among other things, reduce that spending.
"That bill would prevent these mandatory DEI workshops and trainings," Harvey notes.
Ellis says institutions of higher learning left a classical education behind long ago, and that has turned America into an angry, divided, and disillusioned nation. But she does not think liberals see that chaos and division as a problem.
"That's what they stand for," she asserts. "I think they see that as achieving their goal."
Ellis believes colleges and universities need to defund and reject the social justice elements of DEI curriculum and instead fund civics programs with more patriotic viewpoints and Judeo-Christian values.
