FEATURED
ANALYSIS
University of Michigan departments and colleges continue to embrace “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” almost a year after officials promised to abandon a massive “strategic plan.”
In March 2025, former University of Michigan President Santa Ono announced that the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and the Office for Health Equity and Inclusion would close. The school also promised to discontinue its “DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan” and eliminate or reassign much of its affiliated staff. Ono’s embrace of DEI played a central role in his failed attempt to become the new president of the University of Florida.
And much of what Ono (pictured) wanted with the massive DEI plan remains alive and well, The College Fix found.
“We view our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as central to our mission as an educational institution,” the University of Michigan Law School’s website declares.
It states diversity can be “expressed in myriad forms, including race and ethnicity, gender and gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, language, culture, national origin, religious commitments, age, (dis)ability status, and political perspective.”
The law school’s diversity page lists the “Program in Race, Law, and History” as a DEI resource for students. That program “is grounded in scholarship that has established race as at the core of interpreting the history of the Americas.”
Meanwhile, the School of Kinesiology maintains an office of Culture, Equity, and Community that has at least four employees. The office works to “increase the demographic, psychographic, and disciplinary diversity of our community” and promote “inclusive excellence in our teaching, learning, scholarship, and service.”
Similarly, in the Ross School of Business, the Office of Community, Culture, and Belonging fosters “an inclusive environment.”
The School for Environment and Sustainability’s website says: “Equity and justice are woven throughout all that we teach and do at SEAS.”
It also says “mainstream environmentalism has its roots in racist ideologies and practices, which have caused irrevocable harm to Black, marginalized, Indigenous, and underrepresented peoples.” The School maintains a Collective Impact Committee and references a “SEAS Equity and Justice Initiative” on its website.
The University of Michigan media relations team did not respond to an email inquiry sent on Feb. 5 or a follow-up on Feb. 9 about whether the university continues to have employees whose primary responsibilities include DEI programming or what offices absorbed responsibilities previously handled by the diversity office. When The College Fix called on Feb. 10, the automated response indicated emails would be responded to within the same business day they were sent.
University of Michigan Regents Sarah Hubbard and Carl Meyers did not respond to email inquiries from The Fix.
“Ending DEI programs will also allow us to better expand diversity of thought and free speech on our campus,” Hubbard promised last year.
If eliminating DEI will increase free speech on campus, then there are going to be problems for free expression in many of the college’s professional schools.
The School of Dentistry’s website lists a Multicultural Affairs, Well-being and Belonging Committee that supports “groups and committees in promoting multiculturalism and diversity.” The committee also aims to create “a supportive environment by promoting justice.”
Some schools include commitments to social justice or diversity in their strategic plans. For example, the School of Social Work’s strategic vision includes a commitment to “social justice” through “challenging injustice and empowering individuals and communities.”
The College of Pharmacy’s strategic plan includes ensuring “principles of health equity and diversity of experiences are incorporated in the curricula and co-curricula.” Though the document lists the year 2024, it is still linked to on the “Mission, Vision and Values” website.
The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts includes leading “systemic change” and confronting “the biases and barriers that impede full inclusion – and hold ourselves accountable for their dismantling” as part of its strategic vision.
The School of Nursing lists a “commitment to addressing health disparities and making sure that equity and inclusion are integrated into every aspect of our work” on its website. Similarly, the School of Public Health’s “guiding principles” include “health equity for all people” and “diversity and inclusion in education, research, and service.”
The Ford School of Public Policy’s listed values include “inclusion, diversity, and equity.”
“We work to confront systemic inequality through evidence-based policy solutions,” the school says.
The Marsal School of Family Education includes “teaching strategies and research studies that support fair and equitable practices and treatment of all people and protect the most vulnerable in our nation’s classrooms, schools, and communities” as part of its mission. It also offers a Master of Arts in Higher Education with a focus on diversity and social justice in higher education.
The only division that responded to email inquiries from The College Fix was the College of Pharmacy, which declined to comment.
The College Fix did not identify clear DEI commitments or programs at some colleges, including the College of Engineering and the Taubman College for Architecture and Urban Planning.
Some commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion also appear to have been maintained university-wide. For example, the Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs and the Trotter Multicultural Center simply merged into one. However, most of their programming will remain unchanged. MESA’s website includes an explicit commitment to DEI.
Of the 26 staff members who worked in the now-defunct ODEI, 22 are still employed at Michigan. Eleven now work in the new Access and Opportunity office, and the other 11 have been reassigned to units including Wolverine Pathways, Center for Educational Outreach, and the Phillip J. Bowman Center for Scholarship to Practice.
The Bowman Center is the rebranded National Center for Institutional Diversity, but it maintains references to the NCID abbreviation. Some of its initiatives include the “Bowman Center Graduate Anti-Racism Research Grant” and “Change Agents Shaping Campus Diversity and Equity.” It has more than 20 employees, including multiple “Change Agents Shaping Campus Diversity and Equity.”
A separate Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives remains in operation. That office “supports and celebrates students’ unique experiences, backgrounds, communities, and identities.”
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