Black students’ feelings of “belongingness” at Texas A&M have plummeted, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs have not helped, according to a recent report.
Feelings of belongingness at Texas A&M among white, latino, and black students have declined, according to a report titled “How Texas A&M Went Woke.” Data extracted from a poll in the 2020 State of Diversity report shows that black students’ positive opinions about their place in the university have fallen off a cliff.
Fifty-five percent of black students in 2020 agreed with the sentiment that they “belonged at A&M,” representing a 27-point drop from 82% in 2015, according to the report. White and latino students suffered a far less drastic decline, going from 92% to 82% and 88% to 76%, respectively.
Texas A&M paid DEI admins six figure salaries to eliminate racial division and they increased it.
Do you realize the con yet? More division, more DEI dollars. It’s a feature, not a bug.
https://t.co/DoPqyCSN9F pic.twitter.com/JDtVnlgZET
— Oilfield Rando (@Oilfield_Rando) February 25, 2023
In 2010, the university began its “Diversity Plan” program. The DEI program formed the Diversity Operations Committee (DOC), which was in charge of putting the plan into motion, evaluating its success, and making further recommendations for improvements, according to the office’s website. (RELATED: Another State Follows DeSantis’ Lead And Requests Data On University Diversity, Equity And Inclusion Spending)
Over the course of the next decade, the plan made significant changes to how A&M went about hiring faculty, encouraging an analysis of DEI support when evaluating candidates. The program also created career pipelines for female and underrepresented minority DEI administrators. The program became more stringent after 2017, according to the report. In 2019, DEI statements became required of all job applicants in all of A&M’s colleges.
Research published in the Wall Street Journal by social psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Lee Jussim, showed diversity programs such as these do not help race relations, but actually hurt them, especially for black students.
For instance, the researchers found that programs that increase the salience of race often lead to students fostering an “us vs. them” mentality, which creates a toxic environment. Programs that make promises such as increasing the amount of black students or faculty members often mean that universities have to admit applicants with weaker qualifications, resulting in a situation in which race becomes a useful signifier of a person’s ability, according to Haidt and Jussim.
Notably, research conducted as early as 2004 indicates that participation in an ethnic affinity group worsens race relations on campus. “Membership in ethnically oriented student organizations actually increased the perception that ethnic groups are locked into zero-sum competition with one another and the feeling of victimization by virtue of one’s ethnicity,” the study stated.
Likewise, research compiled by the Harvard Business Review (HBR) also substantiated the claim that diversity programs often struggle to help foster positive racial relations.
“The positive effects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash,” HBR stated.
