Witten by Urvi Sakurikar
College students have already faced a disproportionate amount of suffering due to the pandemic, and to make matters worse, the University of California Berkeley is throwing away $25 million a year to address “systemic inequities.”
The university is currently paying 400 staff members to run programs meant to expand diversity and inclusion.
The eight-page job description of the Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion states that the position means “…boldly establishing new paradigms and implementing strategies…that further embed diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice practices into the fiber of the Berkeley campus.”
However, countless studies have found that “…most diversity programs aren’t increasing diversity,” and therefore the hard-earned tuition money of students is being wasted.
In fact, “force-feeding” diversity training has been demonstrated to increase bias in previous lab studies.
The pandemic has essentially ruined California’s economy, and many students are struggling to financially put themselves through school.
For a public university as prestigious as UC Berkeley to carelessly throw their students’ tuition money into a program that has been proven ineffective multiple times is simply insulting and unfair.
$25 million is an exorbitant amount of money, which can easily be directed towards worthy causes such as renovating residential halls, more technology for research labs, or improving on-campus facilities.
UC Berkeley’s so-called diversity and inclusion programs are just another unfortunate example of how today’s educational institutions are excessively politicized.
Rather than focusing on vague and abstract concepts of diversity, equity, and inclusion, the university should prioritize the safe return of all their students to in-person learning and increasing the quality of their education for all.
Photo via The Business Journals
