The Supreme Court recently ruled that universities violated the Constitution by admitting students based on their race. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act forbids discrimination in hiring “against any individual…. because of such individual’s race …. or national origin.”
But laws against racial discrimination haven’t stopped the Biden administration from using taxpayer money to encourage universities to discriminate based on race in hiring. For example, the National Institutes of Health are giving the University of Michigan “$15.8 million to hire ‘minoritized individuals,'” reports The College Fix:
The University of Michigan announced a new initiative to “enhance inclusion and equity across the biomedical and health sciences community,” which includes hiring 30 new professors.
With a $15.8 million investment from the National Institutes of Health and a $63.7 million investment from the University of Michigan, the Michigan Program for Advancing Cultural Transformation will “bolster U-M’s diverse academic environment by hiring tenure-track faculty with a demonstrated commitment to equity and inclusion.”
M-PACT is designed to “address … underrepresentation of minoritized individuals and groups,” according to The University Record….“This program will hire and support a large cohort of diverse faculty who will be … DEI change agents within U-M and their fields of study,” Professor [Reshma] Jagsi stated…The university began its “DEI 1.0” program in 2016, and, according to a report by the Heritage Foundation, has one of the nation’s largest DEI programs….
In a statement provided to the The Fix, the Young Americans for Freedom at the University of Michigan said that it does “not support the idea that DEI is a moral imperative or goal that U of M should strive for, especially not at the cost of academic integrity, and in the medical field, at the cost of quality health care.”
“We are concerned that this program is a poor use of university funds that does not advance proper goals of a public research institution,” the YAF chapter stated. “Not only is it further evidence that U of M would rather sacrifice competence at the altar of ‘diversity,’ it is further evidence that U of M is investing in discrimination in favor of their preferred groups.”
“However, instead of discriminating at the individual level, they are committing to discriminate at the group level by generating candidate pools that fit their desired characteristics,” YAF stated. “Because of this, we are concerned about the future of Michigan’s academic standing and academic integrity.”
The group believes “an appropriate goal for hiring in the biomedical and health sciences field is recruiting faculty members that have demonstrated a commitment to saving patients’ lives.”….
M-PACT is part of the Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation initiative at the NIH, which is designed to “provide funds to recruit diverse cohorts of early-stage research faculty and establish inclusive environments to help those faculty succeed.”
Other institutions awarded grants from the NIH program include the University of Texas El Paso, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Northwestern University, Florida State University and Cornell University.
