Opinion | A time for courage: U-M and DEI

President Trump has been scaring university administrators stiff — possibly illegally — with threats that if they don’t get rid of their DEI programs he’ll take away their federal grant money or do other terrible things. 

President Santa Ono and the University of Michigan leadership prematurely succumbed to that pressure when they announced the “evolution of DEI,” by which they really meant the “termination of DEI.” I have never been so disappointed by the place where I’ve worked as a professor for 18 years. And I highly doubt that it will protect us from anything.

When a schoolyard bully demands your lunch money, if you give it to him, he will probably ask again tomorrow. It is not easy to figure out what to do instead. But if you give in quickly, you’ve labeled yourself an easy target. And it is easier to fight for what’s right when you have $19.2 billion in the bank, roughly the value of U-M’s endowment. If universities with that kind of cushion don't have the courage to stand up for their values, those without billions certainly aren’t going to. Institutions with great resources have a greater responsibility to act with courage.

Speaking about U-M’s DEI efforts in 2023, President Ono said “I’m really proud of what’s been done,” but that “we have much more work to do.” I agreed with him then. We live in an increasingly diverse state and nation. Embracing diversity and benefiting from diverse insights is crucial for a society to thrive. Public institutions of higher education — funded in part by tax dollars paid by everyone — have a special responsibility to raise up the next generation of leaders from all sorts of backgrounds.

That’s why the University of Michigan should welcome with open arms a broad range of students, not just those from the wealthiest, mostly white families. Back in 2016 when we began our focus on DEI, we were failing short. We had one of the wealthiest and least racially diverse student bodies of any selective public university in the nation. 

There is no more affirmative action. To get admitted to U-M, you have to be an excellent student. To diversify our student body, all we can do is recruit far and wide. We can make our campus more welcoming. We can better communicate that we offer lots of financial aid. We can recruit a diverse, world class faculty that will attract a diverse, world class student body. And we can equip our faculty and staff to help more students feel welcome here. Through our DEI efforts, we ask units to take concrete steps to meet these goals.

U-M numbers reveal that we have made some astonishing progress. The number of students who are first in their families to go to college has jumped more than 60%. So has the number of Asian/Asian American students. Hispanic students have risen 167%. Black student enrollment is now up more than 40%. Our low-income student body is way up. We are having more success bringing students from the Upper Peninsula to campus.

Today’s student body is much more representative of our state and of our nation. It is more socio-economically, racially and geographically diverse. And its credentials have never been better. The same is true of our faculty. As a white male professor at U-M, I’ve benefited from all this. I’ve learned more about the world because I engage with a broader range of students and faculty.

Ono in 2023 was right that we can do better, though. Black students only make up 5.2% of the student body, but are about 14% of our state population. I believe strongly that we should care about Black student enrollment because of decades — really centuries — of actions by government to keep Black Americans down. Unjust laws caused Black Americans to be segregated into poorer neighborhoods. Unjust actions led to segregation into under-resourced schools. 

My most recent book was about how these histories cast a long shadow on places still today. What’s more, research finds that racial discrimination is alive and well in the job market. Our DEI programming wasn’t ever going to fix all this, but it was a step toward awareness and acknowledgement. Now so much of this history is being further scrubbed and suppressed.  

Do I believe we had the perfect DEI program? No. But the same is true of every single one of our educational programs, our research administration processes, not to mention our football program, and I don’t think we should cancel them. In fact I just renewed my season tickets. One wonders if we would have folded so quickly had Trump targeted our football program.

Ono in 2023 was proud but not satisfied by our progress on DEI. He was committed to doing better. Ono in 2025 walked away from those commitments because he was scared. He canceled our programs tasked with helping us live up to those values.

I am proud that the University of Michigan is home to a far more diverse student body today than a decade ago. U-M has never been stronger by most metrics. We have more students applying, our student body is exceptionally qualified, our graduates highly successful. Our faculty conduct research that makes people’s lives better.

Let’s not give the bully our lunch money. Instead let’s have the courage to stand up for our convictions. I think Bo’s adage that “those who stay will be champions” applies here. We should fight the good fight. And, I believe, in the end we will be stronger for it if we do.