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Plans prompted skepticism from one scholar who says DEI is still deeply embedded in the institution
A new plan by the University of Michigan to invest in civil discourse is being questioned after the institution spent hundreds of millions of dollars on diversity, equity, and inclusion in recent years.
University President Domenico Grasso announced in September a $50 million investment in a new institute for civil discourse.
In the works since 2024, the institute is expected to open in the spring, a news release states.
“One of my priorities as president is for the nation to look to Michigan as a model in higher education for civil and robust discourse on critical issues,” Grasso said at a Board of Regents meeting in September.
“Silencing voices is anathema to a great university like ours,” he said. “Our common ground, in pursuit of the common good, must be reasoned discourse and civility. I believe we can — and must — rise to this moment, together, in ways only Michigan can.”
As part of the broader effort, Grasso also announced the launch of a new online education module required for first-year students called “Talking Maize & Blue.”
It is “designed to help students navigate and respect different viewpoints, as well as manage emotions when confronted with new or uncomfortable ideas,” Grasso said.
The new institute and module are part of the university’s Look to Michigan initiative, which the university’s leaders began in 2024 to promote “democratic, civic and global engagement” on campus.
The civil discourse institute will include a director and an advisory board made up of scholars with “a broad range of ideological viewpoints,” the university stated when it first announced the initiative in 2024.
The university also plans to ask “individuals and foundations across a range of perspectives” to help fund the new center, it stated at the time.
Sarah Hubbard, a member of the Board of Regents and advocate for free speech and civil discourse at UMich, celebrated the plans for the new institute recently on X.
“We’re investing $50 M to accelerate a permanent center regarding Diversity of Thought,” Hubbard wrote on X in September.
The Fix contacted the university media relations office and Hubbard twice over the past few weeks via email to ask for more details about the new initiative and concerns about DEI. However, neither responded.
The university’s prior history of championing DEI has prompted questions about whether the new diversity of thought initiative is a turning point for the university.
Mark Perry, professor emeritus from the University of Michigan-Flint, believes that the school is still deeply entrenched in diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
“Most of the faculty, staff and students and the University of Michigan are what I would call ‘true believers’ in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and they remain fiercely committed to promoting their DEI trinity with religious zeal,” he told The College Fix in a recent email interview.
A few months ago, the university closed its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, citing pressure from the Trump administration.
But Perry told The Fix: “It’s difficult to know exactly how much DEI rebranding of DEI efforts and promotion of DEI-lite is going on at the University of Michigan because many of the schools, colleges and offices have either hidden their underground diversity efforts from their public websites, or in some cases, restricted their rebranded DEI websites to only UM faculty, staff and students.”
“Perhaps the only way to determine the extent to which DEI still permeates the University of Michigan is for internal whistleblowers to come forward with inside information that is currently being hidden from the public,” he said.
As The Fix reported in 2024, UMich spent approximately $250 million on DEI efforts since 2016, including 241 employees specifically focused on DEI. Much of the research exposing the university’s DEI efforts came from Perry, an economist.
Meanwhile, the university’s past efforts to promote “diversity of thought” have sparked skepticism.
In 2022, for example, the university hosted a panel discussion about intellectual diversity that lacked conservative views, The Fix reported previously.
And despite the Board of Regent’s approval of a “diversity of thought” resolution in 2024, the university continued to invest money into one-sided ideological research, The Fix found.
MORE: Merit-based hiring needed to improve ‘diversity of thought’ at UMich: higher ed groups
