At Texas A&M, a Different Kind of “Climate Change”. Efforts to make the campus more welcoming have alienated students.

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | February 22, 2023 | Scott Yenor

[karpov]

Universities adopt Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) plans with a host of promises. Advocates pledge, for instance, that, through reforms, the university will come to approximate the racial composition of the local community or state. Yet “equity” has proven to be an elusive goal, selectively pursued. It is sought only when it advantages supposedly underrepresented minorities. There are no “Men in Elementary Education” programs and few dedicated to “Men in Nursing.” The inconsistency between the stated goals of equity and its implementation reveals that equity is about disrupting and dismantling more than achieving any kind of parity.

If equity is a wolf in wolf’s clothing, “inclusion” comes as a sheep. The official promise of inclusion (or “belonging,” as it is sometimes styled) is the unobjectionable goal of making all students and staff feel welcome on campus. A good campus climate cultivates a learning environment that, in the words of Texas A&M’s 2010 Report on Diversity, “fully recognizes, values, and integrates diversity in the pursuit of academic excellence.” A goal so vapid must mask deeper, more controversial goals.

Few universities illustrate this truth better than Texas A&M (TAMU), as I show in a recent report. TAMU has sought to build a DEI university since the late 1990s, when former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was its president. Efforts accelerated with TAMU’s 2010 Report on Diversity, which announced a two-pronged revolution in equity and inclusive climate. Important incentives were put in place for university units and colleges that adopted aggressive equity measures and efforts to measure and improve the campus climate. Since then, TAMU units have conducted audits to measure whether the student body or the faculty mirror the population of Texas (equity) and whether people feel they belong on campus (climate).

[AppyPappy]

The number of Native American students has skyrocketed.