Yale Commits $135 Million to Diversity Initiative

Yale University announced recently that it is expanding its diversity spending over the next five years. The new plan includes a 70 percent increase in spending on a diversity initiative designed to create a more diverse faculty.

According to a report by the College Fix, Yale University is doubling down on its efforts to increase diversity on campus. In 2015, the school established an initiative that was designed to increase faculty diversity. The initiative, known as the “Faculty Excellence and Diversity Initiative,” cost the university $50 million in 2015.

Since then, Yale has only increased its dedication to the initiative. In December, Yale University President Peter Salovey announced that he was renewing the Faculty Excellence and Diversity Initiative for another five years. The price tag? $85 million, bringing the program’s total cost to $135 million.

“Due to the success we have seen so far, I am renewing FEDI for another five years with an additional $85 million,” Yale University President Peter Salovey wrote in December. He went on to argue that the initiative is “an emphatic statement about our commitment to recruiting the most distinguished scholars, who will help diversify Yale, transform their fields, create knowledge to improve the world, and inspire our students to lead and serve all sectors of society.”

Larry Gladney, the Phyllis A. Wallace Dean of Diversity and Faculty Development in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Yale University, told The College Fix in a brief interview that there should be no limit on diversity spending.

“I don’t believe it’s possible to put a dollar number on diversity initiatives throughout the University,” Gladney said.

“The $85 million dollars [applied to the FEDI] is meant to aid on-going efforts, for example, not be the budget for them,” Gladney added. “If a department or School hires a faculty member who happens to add to diversity and excellence, that does not automatically translate into money from the FEDI program going to that department, for example. So the incentive is more complex than the idea that just having more money results in quantifiably more hires.”

The Faculty Excellence and Diversity Initiative, which is just one of many diversity-related programs at Yale University, has cost Yale $135 million. Breitbart News reported in May 2018 that the University of Michigan’s diversity office has a payroll of $11 million.

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