(The Center Square) – The University of Mississippi says it will shut down its DEI department “Division for Diversity and Community Engagement” and open in its place the Division of Access, Opportunity, and Community Engagement.
The head of a free market think tank in the state, however, says the announcement is more likely a rebrand to deflect criticism than it is a move away from DEI policies.
“After a yearlong internal review, the University of Mississippi will create a Division of Access, Opportunity and Community Engagement and close its Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, pending approval by the state Institutions of Higher Learning board of trustees,” the school announced in a news release.
“Through a range of programs and services, the division will work with students to strengthen a sense of community, enrich learning and development, enhance research and ensure opportunities for all,” according to the release.
With its new division, the university “seeks to do more to promote student success” in response to the declining rates of high school graduation and higher education enrollment in the state of Mississippi.
“One way in which the division will support students is through opportunities for low-income Mississippi families, such as Ole Miss Opportunity,” the release states. “Also known as OMO, the initiative is a guarantee that eligible lower-income Mississippi residents will receive financial aid to cover the cost of tuition, residence hall housing and an allowance for meals.”
Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Community Engagement Shawnboda Mead will continue as vice chancellor over the new division, according to the school.
The Center Square reached out to the Division for Diversity and Community Engagement for more information from Mead and to the Office of the Chancellor for Ole Miss’ Chancellor Glenn Boyce for comment and was directed to the school’s public relations contact. No response was received from public relations in time for publishing.
President and CEO of Mississippi Center for Public Policy Douglas Carswell told The Center Square via email that he fears Ole Miss’ closure of its DEI department “could just be a re-branding exercise,” since the previous department is being replaced by a new one.
The center is a think tank that helps to make policies, some of its priorities being “opposing ‘woke’ extremism” and “[lowering] taxes,” according to its website.
Carswell told The Center Square: “I fear that tax dollars will still be spent on promoting extreme and divisive left-wing ideology at a public university in our state.”
Carswell said he thinks Boyce made the decision to close one DEI division and open another to “head off anti DEI legislation.”
According to Carswell, Mississippi’s Senate, which has blocked anti-DEI bills, “no longer has the strength” to keep up their opposition. Carswell said Boyce may have realized the Senate’s weakness and thus created the DEI rebrand as a prevention measure.
Carswell told The Center Square about the University of Mississippi’s “five-year university wide strategic plan committed to equity and racial justice” called Pathways to Equity. “Under ‘Pathways to Equity,’ everything at the university – including curriculum content – has been increasingly managed and run through the prism of intersectional ideology.”
“Instead of receiving a rounded education, DEI means that young people are taught the politics of grievance,” Carswell said. “Rather than learning to see themselves as the authors of their own future, DEI ideology teaches young minds to search,” for “victimhood.”
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