Public universities in the state of South Carolina will be required to report the amount of state funds that went towards diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Legislators in the Palmetto state are requesting information on “all spending on programs, trainings, and activities targeted toward people based on their race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.”
A report from the Chronicle of Higher Education notes that “The request seeks salaries and operating costs associated with efforts to make campuses more ‘diverse, equitable, and inclusive.” The article also explains that the institutions have been told to respond by Thursday, February 23rd.
Mark Swart, the Strategic Communications Manager for the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education provided a statement to Campus Reform, saying, “We received the request for information regarding public institutions’ diversity, equity, and inclusion expenditures last week via email from the SC House of Representatives. The request did not come to us from an individual legislator or committee.”
The move from South Carolina legislators came after Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters demanded to know how much money was being spent on DEI programs at public colleges in the state.
The requests revealed that public universities in Oklahoma are set to spend over $10 million on DEI initiatives in the current fiscal year, of which $3.7 million came from the state. Public universities in Florida spent a whopping $28 million on DEI and Critical Race Theory initiatives, including $15 million of taxpayer funds.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion programming has become ubiquitous throughout both academia and the corporate world, with MSNBC reporting that the “DEI market” was worth an astonishing $9.5 billion in 2022 and is set to increase to $15.4 billion by the year 2026.
Spencer Lindquist is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SpencerLndqst and reach out at slindquist@breitbart.com.
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