EDITORS' CORNER
ANALYSIS: One staffer who participated says she learned to be ‘open to different perspectives, because they all may be right’
For several years now, Brown University has been offering a nine-month diversity, equity, and inclusion fellowship that includes trips to countries like Ghana and Brazil for its administrators.
Basically, it’s an “all-expenses-paid vacation for office workers,” funded by students’ tuition, parent Nicole Solas wrote recently on X.
“All self-absorbed, navel gazing personal growth cult-speak. Nothing to do w student academics,” the Rhode Island mother wrote. Solas is a conservative education advocate who was sued by a teacher’s union after requesting records about critical race theory being taught in her child’s school district, Just the News reports.
The university recently posted an announcement welcoming applications for the 2026 program. It states that fellows will travel to Ghana in March 2026 for “experiential learning, cultural exploration,” and more, according to screenshots Solas posted on X.
“The Administrative Fellows Program is a dynamic, 9-month leadership development program for Brown University staff members designed to advance leadership skills in higher education and build skills to foster diverse and inclusive working and learning environments at Brown,” the announcement states.
Along with travel, the fellowship includes “professional networking and mentorship,” “community engagement opportunities,” and “diversity workshops,” according to the announcement.
The Ivy League school began the program in 2016 through its Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity, a university news article states.
In 2019, through the program, five administrators traveled to Brazil to visit museums and talk with activists about LGBT, race, indigenous, and class “struggles and successes,” according to the report.
One of them, Linda Angela, a manager in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, said she learned a lot by being immersed in the Brazilian culture.
“I’m reminded on a regular basis that people have stories that you may not know — that their experiences created them, and it’s unfair to put anyone in a box,” Angela told the university news. “Be open to different perspectives, because they all may be right.”
The program is another example of the DEI administrative spending that The College Fix and others have been exposing on college campuses for years.
Earlier this year, a student journalist with The Brown Spectator published an analysis that found Brown employs one full-time staff/administrative employee for every two full-time undergraduates.
To attend and live at the university, it costs $93,064 per year – “despite budget shortfalls that leave dorms flooding when it rains,” student Alex Shieh wrote at Bloat@Brown.
Past College Fix investigations also have uncovered administrative bloat linked to growing DEI bureaucracies in higher education.
In 2024, a Fix analysis found Columbia University had more full-time employees than undergraduate students, including a “diversity, equity, and inclusion” director for its Earth Observatory.
Another investigation found Cornell University employed one administrator for every two undergraduate students, including a “dean of inclusion” in its veterinary school.
And at the University of Michigan, a public institution, taxpayers pay to employ a DEI manager for its botanical garden, The Fix reported previously.
All this and more has led to questions from Congress, actions by the Trump administration, and wide-spread public distrust of higher education institutions. Some universities have responded by cutting their DEI offices and staff – although questions remain about whether they are really gone.
But as the Brown announcement demonstrates, there are other universities still clinging wholeheartedly to DEI.
MORE: Boston U. course will teach social workers to advance ‘reproductive justice’
IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: The words diversity, equity, and inclusion are displayed; Dmitry Demidovich/Shutterstock
