The DEI revolution’s under-enrollment problem.
One of the seldom discussed aspects of the ongoing revolution in contemporary higher education is the problem institutions are having filling courses that are designed to impart the DEI message to students.
In the mediasphere, the conversation on DEI in higher ed is mostly about, e.g., the fear that conservative “politicization” will drive enrollments down. Students, it is claimed, just won’t stand for conservative reforms of the type instituted by Florida’s Ron DeSantis. This, of course, overlooks all the workthat higher-education institutions have been doing for decades to politicize curricula and drive enrollments downward via their own politicized mechanisms.
Colleges have little incentive in the post-George Floyd Revolution days to linger over questions of enrollment.On occasion, there has been modest press reflection on the fact of under-enrollment in “Studies” and other highly politicized courses. Almost a decade ago, the Chicago Tribune ran a story noting that African-American Studies programs were facing defunding in Illinois state schools due to low enrollments. But colleges have little incentive in the post-George Floyd Revolution days to linger over questions of enrollment or even to report on the situation.
It is not easy to get data on this and other aspects of the consequences of DEI expansion on campuses, because institutions are interested in hiding inconvenient details. Yet those of us on college faculties are aware, for example, of how faculty recruitment has been altered in recent years to skew decisionmaking away from scholarly productivity and promise and toward candidates’ identities and DEI politics.
