Oregon Association of Scholars Publishes Brief on Financial and Institutional Costs of Widespread DEI Bureaucracy in Oregon’s Three Largest Public Universities.

5/23/2024

Oregon – The Oregon Association of Scholars, an affiliate of the National Association of Scholars, has released an Issue Brief examining the costs and reach of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) bureaucracies at the three largest public universities in Oregon. The full brief can be found on the website at https://oregonscholars.org/wp-content/uploads/Issue-Brief-13-DEI-Growing-Cost-in-Oregon-Universities.pdf.  A previous brief from OAS that looked at this issue in 2020 showed that Oregon State (OSU), Portland State (PSU), and University of Oregon (UO) were spending an average of $1.7 million per year in annual costs for salary and benefits for DEI Vice Presidents and an average of 19 full-time staff for each DEI office.

The DEI offices at each university have expanded since then and there are additional DEI positions in the university outside of the DEI offices. The average salary and estimated benefits across these three universities for all DEI related staff is $2.9 million based on the most recent publicly available data from the universities. The total cost for salary and benefits, using a conservative estimate of 20% additional cost for benefits, is $8,706,909. Of the three universities the University of Oregon has the largest overall dollar amount dedicated to DEI staffing.

The financial costs are substantial and on their own raise questions of the utility and necessity of the DEI apparatuses, particularly with the high and continually growing costs of college. There are also questions and issues far beyond the financial costs that should cause the public and the universities to seriously consider a need to down-size or eliminate the DEI bureaucracies and their framework.

The public university system does not exist to pursue partisan political goals or whatever mission a university may wish to adopt. There are laws that set their overall mission and goals and the fundamental shift in direction made by DEI ideology does not align with their defined purpose. Among others, one of the stated fundamental goals in Oregon Revised Statute is “Creating an educated citizenry to support responsible roles in a democratic society and provide a globally competitive workforce to drive this state’s economy, while ensuring access for all qualified Oregonians to a high-quality post-secondary education.” The ideological framework that underlies DEI comes out of Neo-Marxist “Critical Theories” such as Critical Race Theory (CRT). Texts and writings in CRT clearly show that it is fundamentally at odds with traditional civil rights discourse and the enlightenment-based ethos which is supposed to be at the heart of the university. It is not possible for a university to simultaneously embrace such a framework, which calls for fundamental changes to our social and political systems and remain aligned with the goal of creating an educated citizenry that can support responsible roles in a democratic society.

Additionally, there is no solid evidentiary basis that DEI implemented at the lowest level through training produces positive results. Some research has shown that they have the opposite effect of what they are advertised to do and actually increase prejudices and social tensions. A fundamental change in institutional direction at a university should be based on firmly established evidence, not untested ideological fads. Oregonian’s have a deep connection to our public universities and these institutions should honor that by returning to their core mission.

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