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Key Takeaways
- Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt criticized elite universities for using the H-1B visa program to hire staff for their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices, arguing that these positions do not meet the criteria of 'specialty occupations' meant to fill skills gaps in the American workforce.
- Prominent universities like Dartmouth, Carnegie Mellon, and Yale have applied for H-1B visas for various DEI roles, raising concerns about the appropriateness of such hires under the visa's intended purpose.
- Experts, including National Association of Scholars' editor Jared Gould, supported Schmitt's view by stating that DEI roles are bureaucratic and not technical, and should not qualify for H-1B visas, which are intended for high-skill occupations.
Elite universities are using the H-1B foreign worker visa program to staff their “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” offices according to a Republican senator.
Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt recently detailed what he said is an “outrageous” practice by universities including Dartmouth College, Carnegie Mellon University, and Yale University’s health system.
This specific visa program is for workers in a “speciality occupation” that the employer attests cannot be filled from the American workforce, according to the Department of Labor.
Dartmouth applied to hire a “program manager” for DEI through the system, according to an X thread by Sen. Schmitt. Likewise, Carnegie Mellon University requested a visa to fill its “Associate Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, Climate & Equity” position.
Neither university’s communications team responded to two emails and a voice mail left in the past two weeks.
However, Yale New Haven Health said the program is “essential” when asked for comment by The College Fix. Schmitt had criticized the hospital system for requesting visas for DEI specialists. The hospital system is affiliated with Yale University and its medical school.
The hospital system pointed The Fix to a statement from the Connecticut Hospital Association, which said the H-1B program helps “recruit highly skilled physicians and other healthcare professionals to meet the care delivery needs of patients – including those in rural and underserved areas.” Federal policies should “not make it more difficult to attract and retain healthcare professionals,” the association said.
Yale New Haven Health submitted seven H-1B salary request records for Diversity Inclusion specialists between the years 2018 and 2021, with two in New Providence, New Jersey, four in Stratford, Connecticut, and one in New Haven, Connecticut. Three salaries were certified, and four were certified and then withdrawn.
Schmitt sent a letter to United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and said the DEI positions are “plainly ideological and non-technical in nature,” and fall “outside the ‘specialty occupation’ intent of the H-1B statute.”
The editor of the National Association of Scholars’ higher education publication agreed with Schmitt’s assessment.
“The intent of the H-1B program was to fill high-skill positions in specialized fields when qualified American workers could not be found,” Jared Gould, managing editor of Minding the Campus, told The Fix via email. “Diversity offices are hardly such positions—they are bureaucratic, not technical, and should not qualify for this visa category.”
“These universities shouldn’t be filling roles in DEI offices in the first place. DEI programs are divisive, unproductive, and ideologically coercive, simply serving as enforcement arms for political conformity,” Gould said.
“To allow H-1B to fill ‘diversity’ slots would just add insult to injury,” Gould said.
He said the universities should follow “the spirit of President Trump’s executive orders, which rightly called for dismantling such programs altogether.”
Gould told The Fix “the program has morphed into something largely exploited by American companies seeking cheap labor and falsely claiming labor shortages where none exist.”
“If we have to look overseas to find ‘qualified’ people for American classrooms, that’s an indictment of our own education system,” Gould said. “The H-1B program doesn’t showcase our strength—it advertises our decline.”
The program has faced bipartisan criticism over the past years. Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat, and Senator Chuck Grassley, a Republican, proposed a reform bill on Sept. 30. The legislation, they said, took aim at major corporations in tech, retail, and finance for using H-1B visas to replace American jobs with cheap labor.
Sen, Durbin’s office of communications directed The College Fix to the senator’s previous comments when asked about universities using the system to hire DEI workers. The senator also criticized President Trump’s proposal to charge a $100,000 fee for new H-1B applications.
Sen. Schmitt and Grassley’s office did not respond to two inquiries in the past week and a half.
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