Donor funding for student organizations’ projects that enhance diversity, equity and inclusion is now being offered by Michigan State University’s College of Arts and Letters, though the college is being careful to not violate the federal government’s interpretation of anti-discrimination laws.
An email sent Wednesday by Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies and Administration Sonja Fritzsche announced that student groups could apply for up to $500 per semester to fund their projects, initiatives or programming that "enhance and support" DEI. Funding for these scholarships, Fritzsche wrote, was provided by an anonymous donor.
Student organizations primarily aimed at College of Arts and Letters students or facilitated by a unit in the college are eligible to apply for the funding, according to the email.
The letter appears to acknowledge the contentious nature of offering a scholarship to support DEI programs on campus amid a crackdown on diversity initiatives across higher education. It explicitly details how the scholarship complies with the Trump administration’s view that any decision, including scholarship eligibility, based on race violates civil rights laws.
No preference will be given to a protected identity — such as race, religion and nationality — when selecting funding recipients, Fritzsche wrote. Furthermore, any group that receives funding "must make explicit" that membership and participation in its activities are not restricted based on a protected identity.
If an organization’s name is linked to a protected identity, all its websites, applications and promotional materials must make clear that all students, regardless of background, receive equal opportunity to participate or apply.
The creation of the scholarship follows the U.S. Department of Education’s announcement last month that its Office of Civil Rights is investigating 45 universities for engaging in race-exclusionary practices.
The University of Michigan, one of the schools being investigated, announced cuts to all its DEI programs — closing its Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusions and Office for Health Equity and Inclusion, and discontinuing its DEI 2.0 strategic plan. Michigan had previously been a national leader in diversity programming, pouring a quarter of a billion dollars into DEI since 2016.
MSU has not announced similar cuts to its DEI programming, although the university’s top lawyer instructed campus leaders in February to review their programs and activities to ensure compliance with anti-discrimination laws. MSU’s top brass, including President Kevin Guskiewicz, has continually affirmed the university’s commitment to DEI.
MSU’s strategic plan, adopted in 2021, states that one of the university’s goals is to "become a national leader in increasing diversity, promoting inclusion, ensuring equity and eliminating disparities on our campus and beyond." MSU has not publicly announced any deviation from that plan.
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