Posted on 03/06/2024 7:57:03 AM PST by Red Badger
By Adam Andrzejewski, CEO/Founder of OpenTheBooks.com | Published at Substack
The University of Virginia (UVA) has at least 235 employees under its “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)” banner — including 82 students — whose total cost of employment is estimated at $20 million. That’s $15 million in cash compensation plus an additional 30-percent for the annual cost of their benefits.
In contrast, last Friday, the University of Florida dismissed its DEI bureaucracy, saving students and taxpayers $5 million per year. The university terminated 13 full-time DEI positions and 15 administrative faculty appointments. Those funds have been re-programmed into a “faculty recruitment fund” to attract better people who actually teach students.
No such luck for learning at Virginia’s flagship university – founded by Thomas Jefferson no less. UVA has a much deeper DEI infrastructure.
Reform or abolition must await this summer’s anticipated changes in the school’s Board of Visitors. At least until then, the very highly compensated, generally non-teaching, DEI staffers are safely embedded throughout the entire university – while costing students and taxpayers a fortune.
Our team of auditors at OpenTheBooks.com reviewed the university payroll file for 2023 to sort out the DEI position head counts, compensation, and then estimated the cost of benefits.
Meet The Top Paid DEI Executives
Martin N. Davidson, senior associate dean of the Darden School of Business & global chief diversity officer, earns the most in a DEI role, at $452,000, or $587,340 including benefits. For comparison, Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia earned $175,000.
The second most highly compensated DEI executive is Kevin G. McDonald, the vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion and community partnerships, who takes home $401,465, or an estimated $520,000 with benefits.
Those in DEI leadership roles such as vice presidents, associate/assistant deans, directors, assistant directors and managers earned up to $312,000 last year, or $400,000 with benefits.
When McDonald began in his position in August 2019, he was making $340,000, eligible for a 10-percent bonus every year. His first year, he was given a $25,000 recruitment bonus and up to $30,000 for relocation costs, according to UVA records provided through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Some of the DEI chiefs have been transparent about their philosophies during their public comments. For example, Rachel Spraker, an assistant vice president for equity & inclusive excellence – where she earned $186,800 last year or $242,840 with benefits – described the opioid epidemic in Appalachia as an example of “white toxicity.”
DEI staff aren’t the only well-paid employees in controversial roles at UVA.
Lanice Avery, an assistant professor of psychology in the departments of Psychology and Women, Gender and Sexuality, makes $102,200 ($132,860 with estimated benefits). She runs the Research on Intersectionality, Sexuality, and Empowerment (RISE) Lab at UVA and writes and speaks about black, female sexuality, and describes herself as a “board-certified sexologist” and speaks online about her orgasms.
UVA’s DEI Infrastructure
What does the DEI bureaucracy do?
There are 187 UVA employees and students dedicated to “assist and monitor all units of the University in their efforts to recruit and retain faculty, staff, and student from historically underrepresented groups and to provide affirmative and supportive environments for work and life…”
Here are some of the university agencies committed to the DEI mission. If you think you are seeing double in this list, you are right:
Equity Center (110 employees total: 37 employees 73 students),
Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (17 employees 1 student),
Multicultural Student Services (6 employees 10 students),
Office of Diversity & Engagement (3 employees 4 students)
Center for Diversity (4 students)
Included in the DEI employment roster are another 31 people working in DEI roles sprinkled throughout other departments, including the Urology Department, in Occupational Programs, for the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and other areas.
Then, there are another 48 employees and students working in roles related to DEI and advancing equality for women, minorities, etc.
Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center (21 employees, including 4 undergrad students/interns)
Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (16 employees working on Title IX compliance, sexual misconduct investigations and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, among other things)
Office of African American Affairs (4 employees)
Center for Global Health Equity (4 employees and 3 student employees working on providing health services to mostly Third World countries)
Not included in the DEI numbers for this investigation were the Women, Gender and Sexuality Department with 10 professors making a collective $857,103 last year ($1.1 million with benefits) and the Psychology Department with 87 employees making $8.4 million ($11 million with benefits).
Adding to the confusion, the university has consistently undercounted DEI staffers in presentations to the public. In April 2023, Kevin McDonald told the New York Timesthat UVA had only 40 DEI employees. In May 2023, a presentation to the Board of Visitors claimed UVA had only 55 DEI positions.
Even our list of 235 employees is not complete. Here is a great example of an executive with a hidden DEI mission:
Kimberley Barker, Librarian for Digital Life ($80,000, or $104,000 with benefits). Barker isn’t in our database, however, she is the DEI leader for the Health System Library – the “IDEA (Inclusion Diversity Equity Accessibility) lead. Her university bio page lists her as the “Librarian for Belonging and Community Engagement.”
Summary
UVA was founded by Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence. Jefferson’s work presented the moral case for a common freedom among all men. The university has an historic opportunity to promote the time-tested principles:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”
But, instead of working towards the ideal of the Shining City on the Hill under Jeffersonian principles, his university embraced the divisive quotas of the neo-Marxist DEI crowd.
Tens of millions of dollars in student tuition and taxpayer monies are flowing into promoting anti-American notions and radical philosophies that judge the color of one’s skin instead of the content – and competence – of their character.
Students, taxpayers and all who care about learning can look to Florida as the beacon of a new day. Perhaps Virginia, a birthplace of our Constitutional republic, home to birth places of individual rights and freedoms in America, will emulate the model.
University of Virginia lost their minds way back after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Having lost their model society they have been adrift ever since.
Often when a university hires a tenured research professor or senior administrative staff, if the successful candidate has to relocate and has a spouse who is employed the university will also find a position for the spouse as well, commensurate with the job they had to leave in order to facilitate the move.
Yes, but those are typically one-time costs, not annual expenditures...................
Kevin G. McDonald:
Tracy M. Downs:
Mark Steven Cartwright:
Meara M Habashi:
Keisha John:
(BTW, the very large staff of the "Office of the Dean, College of Arts and Sciences" has exactly one man in it.)
Rachel Spraker:
(Is "Rachel" a dude? The World Wonders.)
Christie Julien:
Kierah Barnes:
Mark Christopher Jefferson:
Colleges are nothing more than job programs for unemployable liberals. These people are completely useless to humanity. In fact, all they do is destroy everything around them. They are demons.
I don’t see a lot of ‘diversity’ there...................
I suppose in a way it would not be an ongoing cost to hire the spouse of a recruited administrator or researcher. The spouse is just taking a job that otherwise would be fulfilled by someone else.
Unless the university had to create a position because none were otherwise available for the spouse.
Oh, but they’re ALL ‘diverse’!
The spouse is just taking a job that otherwise would be fulfilled by someone competent......................
$20 million dollars per year, divided by 23,721 students (according to https://admission.virginia.edu/admission/statistics for 2023), equals:
$843 per student per year. Something to think about when you're paying off your student loan, honey, for that college "education".
The annual tuition at the University of Virginia Main Campus for in-state undergraduate students residing in Virginia is $16,980.
They could provide full scholarships for 1178 students EVERY YEAR!.........................
$1,000 of every student’s tuition goes to DEI.
This should piss off every taxpayer in Virginia..................
I just finished the selection process for feral jury duty. Not picked again, getting pretty predictable, I'm ZERO for 6 times called. If I get as far as name and profession I get let go. Anyway, just a few observations about the court. Beautiful old building, lots of spacious empty places in it, well kept but like a dime in a goat's butt. The area surrounding the building is a post industrial slum on at least three sides. There were about 15 federal employees in the court room by my count. There were five attorneys for the gooberment plus fbi agents on the case plus no less than 3-4 marshals at a time in the court room and they were relieved about every 30 to 45 minutes in rotation lest they get too tired or something. Of the 32 people in the semi-finals who gave their name, occupation and other details when asked about 3/4 of them had some kind of public payroll job. Only about 6 or so actually worked in the private sector and those were mostly farmer / ranchers or self-employed tradesmen and one insurance agent. All the rest were teachers, counselors, social workers, state, local and federal employees of some kind or worked for one of the Indian Tribes in our area. I would not have given so much personal information with the criminal defendant and so many people I did not know in the court room. Prospective jurors were addressed by their first and last name in the court room, surprised me with all the usual effort to protect personal information. In local courts, the only others I have been called for, we were addressed by juror number. Though I see most criminals in court as guilty I doubt anyone can get a fair trial if the gooberment wants to burn you for any reason. The gooberment has unlimited resources, there is no such thing as equal representation under the law against such an overwhelming force.
I'll wager that the daily cost of the court I was called for exceeds the monthly income of most of the people in the jury pool. Just the daily rate for the jury pool reaches $3,000 plus mileage and per diem for those over 75 miles away. That per diem rate is something like $165 a day. Again, I'll wager just the jury pool runs in to at least $6,000 a day in total during the selection process. 600 people are in the pool for this 3 month period at a probable base cost of something like $75,000 just for each of their first day's attendance. The trial was expected to go on for four days. After that will be endless appeals and incarceration. This whole scene is repeated in federal district court houses all across the nation. Crime is a cost multiplier. Just the cost of the "justice" system in this country is enough to choke a horse. You know it goes on all the time but to see it and experience it in action drives the shocking truth in to you.
Just about every day in hundreds of court rooms across the country these costs go on and they hardly make round-off in the federal budget. Costs of each court are not even noticed but would break most of us mere mortals.
I’ve been called a few times but always got excused................
In high screwl we walked down to the county court house for law day or something. The DA gave us the dollar tour and told us how it was all to work. After it all he asked for questions and I opined that in the jury selection process they are in search of the 12 village idiots if they can find them. The DA just about blew his coffee out of his nose and the judge had to turn his head.
Twelve (plus an alternate) people who are too stupid to get out of jury duty will decide the fate of a person...................🤦♂️
In feral court I guess they use two alternates.
Or reduce undergrad tuition by $800 per year!
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