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Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) derail from student loans thread

Trausti said:
FFS. If those braying about the oppression of student loans actually gave a shit about the students, and not protecting those exploiting them, they'd question why universities have had explosive spending on non-teaching administrative staff while their graduates suffer long-term debt. It's no secret the tuition costs have increase at rates far greater than inflation. Where does the money go? To instruction? Fuck, no. If the administration at a public university cannot make tuition affordable while spending $$$ on fake jobs, those administrators should be fired.

As University administration salary rises, so does tuition



Hah, hah. Fuck you student. Get more loans.
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It has been repeatedly pointed out that college spending has not been rising unreasonably. It's that the student's share of that cost is going up.
 
Rhea said:
So if one of these DEI staff positions helps a student - or 50 students - prepare their experiences and classes for success and helps them design a resume to show their accomplishments and gets them a better job 5 months sooner, it is hardly a “fuck you student,” but rather a meaningful impact against their cost of education.
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While you are right about the overall spending, what little contact I have had with DEI efforts (admittedly, this was back in the 80s) was uniformly negative. They would have been better served by chucking the whole thing, including the relevant employees. (Most extreme example of the problem: There was a document-eating bug that we warned everyone about how to steer clear of. Some had to learn the hard way. Most of the documents lost were trivial exercises, but occasionally people lost non-trivial things. I had worked out a procedure to recover the trashed documents and taught it to a couple of other people in the lab that I felt were sufficiently knowledgeable to do it without making a bigger mess. This teacher was the only person I ever encountered to hit the document-eater twice. I got her document back, minus about 4 lines that were lost because my procedure added about 4 lines of crap--the normal route was simply to delete the crap but it had pushed her document beyond the maximum possible size. Her reaction to my failure to get those 4 lines was to try to get me fired because I was obviously anti-Hispanic. Sorry, but that sort of thing was way beyond my job description, they didn't even offer any class that came close to teaching what was needed to figure out the procedure.)
 
Loren Pechtel said:
what little contact I have had with DEI efforts (admittedly, this was back in the 80s) was uniformly negative.
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Sounds like you had trouble with one person, 40 years ago.

I feel like that points to a pretty good record…
 
Rhea said:
Loren Pechtel said:
what little contact I have had with DEI efforts (admittedly, this was back in the 80s) was uniformly negative.
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Sounds like you had trouble with one person, 40 years ago.

I feel like that points to a pretty good record…
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It is a good record.

Besides An anecdotal evidence of a sample of one is not terribly convincing. For example, over the years I have many interactions with computer coders and IT people of which the vast majority have been unpleasant and unhelpful. But I have not concluded that coders or IT personnel are uniformly negative or useless.
 
Rhea said:
Loren Pechtel said:
what little contact I have had with DEI efforts (admittedly, this was back in the 80s) was uniformly negative.
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Sounds like you had trouble with one person, 40 years ago.

I feel like that points to a pretty good record…
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No. I had a problem with everyone involved that I encountered. I simply presented the worst offender.
 
This is just my personal experience with DEI. I've been with my company for 16 years and since DEI became a major focus (pushed regularly by our CEO) I've noticed an improvement in management. We went from folks in management hot stepping around like they have a bollard up the ass pushing every ounce of work on their lessors and never being around when the shit hit's the fan to people who actually pull their weight and respect the office.
 
My opinion is that there are a few factors leading to this situation. Many people in the US are overpaid. College cost, healthcare, and some other costs seem to go up much faster than cost of living and I wish there were something that could curtail that. On the other hand, this specific person also has a J.D. which has a large range of salary. Her salary is about 90th percentile for the degree and that is probably because it is a high level position at an institution of tens of thousands of students. She also has an undergraduate degree from an Ivy League school and years of experience as a defense attorney and in other high level diversity roles which means in order to retain her the school has to offer a high salary.

While I am sure that there is a rational discussion to be had about salaries, typical conservative lashing out and poisoning the well by misrepresenting things does not lead to such discussion. For example, she never said she was fighting oppression through "mindfulness breathing." That is a dirty trick, quote-mining, just like Creationists do. What she actually wrote was that her job goes beyond the 9-to-5 hours and she has to find balance between work and non-work. One of her techniques is mindfulness breathing--it has nothing to do with fighting oppression tactics.
 
Rhea said:
Trausti has a lot of disdain for non-instructional staff at a university.
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Some non-instructional staff is needed for sure. However, there has been a big increase in such staff over the last few decades. Are you arguing it was all needed?
Student deserve better than to be used as slogans to crush attempts at diversity and equality.
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Those two are often in conflict. The go-to strategy for increasing "diversity" (which in leftist speak means fewer white males) is discriminating against certain students and giving race- and gender-based advantages to others.
Notably though, the left never criticizes so-called "HBCUs" as lacking diversity even though they tend to be 90% or more black. Why is that?
I mean, I volunteer to be hired by Morehouse to act as a $400k "director of diversity" ...
 
Derec said:
Rhea said:
Trausti has a lot of disdain for non-instructional staff at a university.
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Some non-instructional staff is needed for sure. However, there has been a big increase in such staff over the last few decades. Are you arguing it was all needed?
Student deserve better than to be used as slogans to crush attempts at diversity and equality.
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Those two are often in conflict. The go-to strategy for increasing "diversity" (which in leftist speak means fewer white males) is discriminating against certain students and giving race- and gender-based advantages to others.
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Increasing "diversity" usually means increasing the numbers of students from under-served demographic groups. It usually does not mean fewer white males. Do you have evidence to support your claim about "leftist speak"?
Derec said:
Notably though, the left never criticizes so-called "HBCUs" as lacking diversity even though they tend to be 90% or more black. Why is that?
I mean, I volunteer to be hired by Morehouse to act as a $400k "director of diversity" ...
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Can you point to any HBCU policy or protocols that serve to dissuade or deny non-black students to apply or be admitted? If not, you have answered your own question (if you think about it).

BTW, did you know
In the 1930s, many Jewish intellectuals fleeing Europe after the rise of Hitler and anti-Jewish legislation in prewar Nazi Germany following Hitler's elevation to power emigrated to the United States and found work teaching in historically black colleges.[22][23] In particular, 1933 was a challenging year for many Jewish academics who tried to escape increasingly oppressive Nazi policies,[24] particularly after legislation was passed stripping them of their positions at universities.[24] Jews looking outside of Germany could not find work in other European countries because of calamities like the Spanish Civil War and general antisemitism in Europe.[25][24] In the US, they hoped to continue their academic careers, but barring a scant few, found little acceptance in elite institutions in Depression-era America, which also had their own undercurrent of antisemitism.[23][26]

As a result of these phenomena, more than two-thirds of the faculty hired at many HBCUs from 1933 to 1945 had come to the United States to escape from Nazi Germany.[27] HBCUs believed the Jewish professors were valuable faculty that would help strengthen their institutions' credibility.[28] HBCUs had a firm belief in diversity and giving opportunity no matter the race, religion, or country of origin.[29] HBCUs were open to Jews because of their ideas of equal learning spaces. They sought to create an environment where all people felt welcome to study, including women.
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Source -  Historically_black_colleges_and_universities
 
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