UPDATE: It now turns out that all faculty members at the University of Illinois will, to some extent, be DEI personnel. U of I at Urbana Champaign will soon require all faculty members to submit a diversity statement to be considered for tenure or promotion. Our new column on that is here. The new policy requires from all faculty a personal statement detailing “specific individual and/or collaborative activities aimed at supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as access.” Candidates should “include a discussion of the context, importance, and impact of their contributions along with their future plans for contributions. The candidate may choose to organize the statement by topic, activity, domain (e.g., research, teaching, and service), or in another manner.” Additionally, we added additional salary information at the bottom.
By: Mark Glennon*
DEI stands for diversity, equity and inclusion. At universities, however, it means bloat.
A detailed study by the Heritage Foundation documents the bureaucracy and some salary information.
“A review of salary data shows that the universities of Michigan, Maryland, Virginia and Illinois, plus Virginia Tech, boast some of the highest-paid DEI staffers at public universities,” said a Fox News column on the study this week. “These institutions’ top diversity employees earn salaries ranging from $329,000 to $430,000 – vastly eclipsing the average pay for the schools’ full-time tenured professors.”
Four of those colleges offered their justification for DEI leaders’ salaries, citing the executives’ seniority and the importance of their responsibilities, but the University of Illinois did not return a request for comment, according to Fox.
The numbers from the study are indeed stunning. The 65 universities reviewed in the study have an average of 45 DEI personnel. The University of Illinois ranks seventh highest in the nation with 71 DEI staff. Northwestern ranks 20th with 52.
Sean C. Garrick, vice chancellor for diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of Illinois, earns nearly $330,000 annually, salary disclosures show, according to the Fox column. But the average Illinois full-time professor salary hovers only around $152,000, Fox says.
The average of the 65 universities has as a ratio of DEI staff to tenured and tenure-track faculty of 3.4 per 100. By those measures, U of I and Northwestern are a bit better but still worse than average, ranking 17th and 19th, with ratios of 4 and 3.8, respectively, per hundred. They were the only two Illinois schools among the 65 studied.
Perhaps most depressing are the study’s findings of the ratio of DEI personnel to history professors. “The ratio of DEI personnel to history faculty is an indicator of how much universities prioritize the narrower, particular narratives of DEI relative to the broader narratives traditionally covered by history faculty,” says the study correctly.
And here’s what they found: The average institution examined lists 1.4 times as many DEI personnel as tenured or tenure-track history professors. U of I again scored worse than that average with a ratio of 1.9. Northwestern was better (if that’s the right word) than average with a ratio of 1.2.
The best way to end the travesty that has overtaken higher education in America is to stop giving them money. A welcome trend is underway that we wrote about earlier. Some wealthy donors are using their clout to fight the cancel mobs and woke radicals now dominating most schools.
The stakes are enormous. “This is a battle for our culture and, in many ways, for Western civilization,” said the head of one of the dissident donor groups to the Wall Street Journal. We can only hope that governmental follows the same path of withholding financial support.
*Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints.
We are adding here some additional salary information we were able to find on the IBHE salary database for DEI personnel in Illinois universities. This is a very partial listing because they go by many different titles and these were only found in that method:
Audio and summary 
If this bill passes, say goodbye to local control over all Illinois parks and expect to see open drug and alcohol use, needles, no sanitation and fire hazards, but no ordinary park users.
Venetria Patton is the new dean of Liberal Arts and Sciences at U. Illinois. If you look into her, she’s a career diversity officer.
This is called “redistribution” the Obama way.
Same deal at Northwestern and UofChicago. Wirepoints – any way to “shake the tree” and get that info too?
Very hard to identify all the personnel devoted to DEI. We have tried. As you will see in the news coming re U of I, maybe it does not matter because all faculty are being forced into becoming DEI agents.
WOW 😳! It pays over $300,000 to $400,000 to play the “race card”. Who knew?:Thank you for reporting this.
Who knew? Race hustling pays! Jesse Jackson must be proud!
Harking back to my Latin days, ‘Dei’ means God. Quite an insult to the Almighty using this acronym for the current round of embedded craziness.
I agree with another commenter – the acronym should be DIE. That foreshadows what lies ahead if we stay on the current course.
Speaking of Latin, that’s another failure of our education system. I sorely regret that I was not able to study it. There is so much wisdom in Latin from the Romans. I was in high school when they first demoted Latin and made a modern language a requirement. I understand they have backed off from it now, but I am still pissed.
My wife studied Latin (in another country at a private school), and she is the most well written professional I’ve known. I’m biased, but I don’t believe I have ever seen her make a grammatical error.
Boasting aside, it truly does have value, and I too wish I had studied it.
My daughter studied it and went to Governors School in Latin in Virginia. No surprise she obtained 800 on the verbal portion of the SAT.
Wow. That’s huge! Kudos to your daughter for such hard work, and to you for being a good parent. May I ask what she does now for a living? These types of success stories always interest me, and then to see what people choose to do with a skill set like this.
She is a cardiologist. My other kid did not take Latin, but did achieve 2400 on the SAT and finished Princeton in 3 years. As I have mentioned, I went to JB’s school on athletic scholarship and was an ok student but was wise enough to marry well from there. The head of my honors program told me the key to success , especially given my limited level of preparation and athletic obligations, was the ability to sustain ego damage. No safe spaces. Can you imagine the uproar if a professor said this today to a minority student (I was… Read more »
Thanks for sharing that — your advice is indeed very good. I grew up with very little as well, and although I felt like “other kids ha(d) it better” I can’t imagine I would be in a better position without having learned mental toughness and work ethic. My parents did not indulge me. They said “tough” more often than not, but still spent time with me and valued education. It is so sad that our culture has made a left turn into the ideology that coddling, with safe spaces and indulgences is the way to success. These kids are in… Read more »
“These kids are in for a lifetime of disappointment, unless and until they figure it out.”
No, we are in for a lifetime of disappointment from these children. They’re clearly aiming, like every other communist, to take what belong to you and appropriate it for themselves.
Check out the top 200 in each category. Scroll down to SURS or any of them to see how much they are getting
https://taxpayersunitedofamerica.org/15th-annual-illinois-pension-report/
This is depressing. I knew that there was bloat, and that it was due to frivolous undertakings, but those ratios are astounding. It strikes me that the cause of it may be the professors themselves, however. Professors are nothing if not virtue signalers. So, back in the day before these “departments” were created, how much of it was due to faculty clamoring for “their” university to demonstrate fealty to the Diversity Gods? They got tired of teaching the same middle and upper middle class white kids from Naperville North and Hinsdale Central. They want to feel like they are helping… Read more »
Weaponized government now functions as organized crime and is history’s greatest pyramid scheme. Educational goals are to produce woke voters not competent citizens.
What I don’t get, is nationally college/university student populations are declining. Universities are desperate for students. The astronomical tuition prices and debt never go down. Are the universities now forcing students to take woke/DEI classes (African American studies class or something) to graduate at astronomical prices? Is U of I now forcing kids to go even further into debt to take a lot of useless DEI classes to graduate? or are the kids volunteering to sign up for DEI classes as part of their lib arts requirements to graduate (not that the lib arts requirements isn’t another racket)?
They are forced to take classes and many of them are DIE
https://courses.illinois.edu/gened/2022/fall/CS
Effective Summer/Fall 2018: Undergraduates newly admitted in Summer/Fall 2018 or later (note this includes both freshman as well as transfers matriculating in Summer/Fall 2018 and after) need to complete one course in Non-Western Cultures; one course in US Minority Cultures; and one course in Western/Comparative Cultures.
Maybe they could save all the college kids some big bucks and just make them watch a lot of npr, because that’s all npr is these days–all woke all the time 24/7. Instead of going into debt to fulfill your DEI credits w the class in transgender equity guilt shaming??
What’s the $110,000 in “additional compensation” for Garrick? Does he have sort sort of bonus goals or something? Let me guess, Mr. Equity isn’t contributing to his pension.
It’s April Fool’s, right?
ICYMI: Lincoln College in Lincoln IL is closing permanently after 157 years….
https://herald-review.com/news/state-and-regional/lincoln-community-reacts-to-devastating-college-closure-news/article_da13ef2b-341b-54cd-839a-8c9693e3fc9e.html
I worked at a college for a brief time about eight years ago and left because of the woke culture, even then. I can tell you that colleges and universities put a ton of money, time and effort toward the woke culture – diversity, equity and inclusion – and anything they include. Often, to the exclusion of other, more important, issues – like safety and security. If I had kids in high school now I would point them in the direction of the trades. Higher education is dangerous and has become a joke. Institutions of indoctrination!
Out of control, as per the usual for the Illinois political class. In IL though Mark, you have to also mention the retirement pension and medical benefits, given their scale compared to other states.
As you/Ted have taught us, in Illinois its not just the ie $350k salary, its that plus a FABULOUS pension and medical benefits upon retirement (ie at age 55) to help fund trips to Europe for 30 years, or the opportunity to earn another FABULOUS ILL pension.
Right. We can’t get a full handle on this racket. It runs through all of government, not just universities. We tried at one point to add up all the DEI people in IL government and were unable to but could not do it because meaningful titles and job descriptions are not there. The referenced Heritage study did a good job, however, on the tedious process of going through that for schools. If you did it for all IL government the numbers would no doubt be overwhelming, especially if you include pensions, as you say.
It is people like this, the entitled elite…
They are at the top & so they get to make the rules & more importantly, craft the budgets…
School administrators, politicians double dipping, etc…
Lumping us in with them gives the rest of us *worker bees* that are collecting a black eye…
I am as concerned as you are, because they are depleting the pension funds by talking far more than their fair share…
What a joke. It appears that the Democrats are undermining their Own cause by having all of these carve outs, set asides, and special groups. We have to have high paid administrators to make sure non white kids aren’t being discriminated against by the teachers? The high schools have this too. These people don’t even work with the students, let alone teach. They should hire more people to teach and work with the students instead of paper pushers and virtue signallers. It’s all gone overboard with diversity, equity, inclusion, to such an extent that there’s being blowback form the majority.… Read more »
I’m with you, Rob.
Yes, but the culture has only changed for half the population, maybe even less, but unfortunately, many of the communists are in positions of institutional power. The communists are trying to force the rest of us to accept their changes and they’re experiencing significant push back. My lastest theory (heard somewhere else) is that Trump broke them. Literally broke them, made them all mentally ill. Now we have half the society full of crazy people, still stuck with TDS, mass formation psychosis type stuff, everyone is trans type stuff. I heard a guy on the radio once say that communism… Read more »
The Disney thing is a real problem. I was thinking the other day that I could no longer be the CEO of a publicly listed corporation. You cannot win. Chapek tried to stay out of it, but he had a bunch of woke employees walk out, demanding a position. Outside special interests banded together to shame him. So, he then has to “apologize” and take a position, which then infuriated more than half his customers. He now hopes that everyone just forgets while he tries to slink out of sight. And how has this helped his company make money and… Read more »
Universities are flush in cash, so they can afford this. Propped up by a student loan system that gives anyone with a heartbeat a loan that they can’t unload in bankruptcy. Those proceeds immediately go to the university leaving all liability upon the sucker student. I’m against price controls, but maybe its time to impose tuition price controls and abolishing student loans. The margins universities operate under are ridiculously good, no other business has margins this good. And they are good because the government has carved out a sweet deal for these indoctrination mills. To boot DEI’s main purpose it… Read more »
I’m curious to know how a university can justify a staff of five to six dozen. What do they do? So I visited the website of the U of I’s vice chancellor for DEI (or as I call it, DIE, because this ideology is killing common sense and is divisive). It’s clear from reviewing their org chart that this group is busy immersing itself into every aspect of the campus experience – curricula, culture, hiring, community relations, facility accessibility, and on and on. As universities continue their unchecked wokeness, parents and donors seem to be the remaining lines of defense.… Read more »
They do social control.
Social control and the culture war have been weaponized respectively by both political parties so that we keep arguing. If the “far left” wants social control, the “right” absolutely wants to crush the working man and put him into indentured servitude. Both parties have conspired to hollow out the middle class. They both take our money and parcel it out to various special interests, just different ones. Both parties feed the military industrial complex. The only reason we don’t see high profile indictments is that both sides are so corrupt that they have mutually assured destruction, just like the world… Read more »
Biden and Trump are two sides of the same coin. I completely understand how you feel, and the uniparty is certainly a real thing, and even 20 years ago I too was complaining about both sides being crooks. But you’re still living in the past. There is a very, very real war out there. The naivety of refusing to take a side, because they both suck, makes you cannon fodder highly likely to suffer collateral damage. All you have to do is look at the military to see where this is going. Years back, Obama purged hundreds of high ranking… Read more »
Obama? Nope. Obummer.
Is this the same “woke” military leadership that refused to enter the political melee on Jan. 6th? I don’t think from your politically charged comments you ever had military service. I did that for a long time and consequently don’t subscribe to your version of how military appointments to its higher ranks generally works. As for its civilian leadership appointments that’s a whole different ball game, of course. That tends to blow back and forth with the winds of the political environment of the times.
I never served but multiple family members have and I have two cousins in service now, one of them overseas. Today is #TransDayofVisiblity–Check out @UnderSecAF Jones talk with Lt. Col. Bree Fram, highest-ranking openly transgender DeptofDefense officer, about her role as the Deputy Chief of Acquisitions Policies and Process Division for the @SpaceForceDoD https://mobile.twitter.com/usairforce/status/1509580161376731144 Watch this video and tell me what you think. Do you think videos like this are designed to recruit 18 year old farm boys to fight our wars and protect our country? Long gone are the days of the military’s ads of ‘be all you can… Read more »
If the “far left” wants social control, the “right” absolutely wants to crush the working man and put him into indentured servitude. No. This is a Marxist view and talking point. This equivalency that “they all suck” is just an intellectually lazy take. The truth is that today’s right is the working man and the middle class. Perhaps you mean the Republican Establishment? Maybe some take an aristocratic view of society, but all indications that I can see are that the Left are the ones who are champagne socialists, the tech oligarchs and the billionaire heirs (Pritzker). These are the… Read more »
The both sides suck view, regularly espoused by Shaun Tompson the radio, is convincing but unfortunately about 6 or 7 years out dated. Shaun is getting old and rigid in his views.
The reality on the ground, well recognized by younger conservatives, is that the Democrat party is encouraging your children to cut off their genitals. That sounds insane but it true.
The Republican party is against this. You can say Republicans are RINOs, or useless, or ineffective. All valid criticisms. But in 2022, Republicans and Democrats are not two sides of the same coin, not by a long shot.
Thank you, and I agree. Leftism is poisonous, and yes, the Establishment Right of yore has some responsibility for not taking seriously the threat of Leftist ideology. But this is not a linear progression. The 50’s were full of Republicans who were well aware of the communist threat in our government, but they were pilloried by the media, who was able to wholly influence a middle class that had no other sources for truth. In terms of grift, yes, I think many politicians succumb to it. And that’s where Rob is correct in that some adjustments to our system are… Read more »
But honestly I think the need for change is more in our culture. I don’t even know how culture got so depraved, honestly. Conservatives have always had a problem with culture – even the Puritans found the Dutch youth corrupting so they hopped on a boat and crossed the Atlantic to the new world. But culture today has devolved into ideologues obsessed with sexualizing children into different genders and shaming anyone who disagrees as a bigot. It’s insane, really, we’re all still in shock because it came so quickly. A buddy of mine in Chicago Public Schools told me the… Read more »
What is the mission of these Universities? ” to educate “, first and only. Fire all of these DEI and concentrate on education.