DEI Will Continue in His School, U. of Mich. Dean Says in Since-Deleted Post By Katherine Mangan March 31, 2025 Despite the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s decision on Thursday to close its diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, one dean told his colleagues over the weekend that he has no intention of ending DEI.
“Diversity, equity, and inclusion will continue at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design because our academic program and DEI initiatives are legally compliant, in alignment with our university values, and an extension of the mission of our school,” Carlos F. Jackson, who is also a tenured professor in the school, wrote.
As his letter to colleagues was being widely circulated on social media, the link became inactive, causing many to wonder if the administration had intervened.
On Monday, the campus’s provost, Laurie K. McCauley, issued a statement saying she had talked to Jackson. “He assured me that he had no intention of being misaligned with the changes announced in our Thursday communication,” she wrote. “He was attempting to signal to his community that the school would continue to be a welcoming place to teach and learn. He will be issuing a new communication to clear up any confusion his earlier message may have caused.”
Jackson, a visual artist and writer whose work reflects themes and imagery in Chicano art, was appointed dean in 2022.
On Monday afternoon, the university’s media-relations office forwarded a revised message from Jackson. “It is imperative to affirm that the Stamps School will comply with the directive issued by University leadership on March 27, 2025, university policies, as well as state and federal laws,” the new statement said.
“My message on Friday should not be interpreted as a statement of non-compliance. It is my intention to ensure our faculty and staff have the solidity to continue building a community of respect, generosity, and accountability rooted in commitments of a future that includes people from all backgrounds and beliefs and allows them to flourish.”
Santa J. Ono, Michigan’s president, and other top university officials cited President Trump’s threats to cut funding to universities with DEI programs as factors that influenced their decision to close the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, as well as the Office of Health Equity and Inclusion.
The institution’s diversity initiatives came to be seen by many faculty members as censoring controversial speech and as ineffective in recruiting and retaining more Black students on campus. (The university credits its DEI efforts for an uptick in the number of Pell grant recipients attending the college.)
The university announced that it will be moving “student facing” services to other offices focused on student access and opportunity and that it will discontinue the university’s DEI 2.0 strategic plan, the umbrella strategy for schools, colleges, and units. The university has not said how many jobs are being cut, but Faculty Senate officials said they expect about 20 people to be laid off.
In his letter to colleagues, Jackson wrote that two hours before the president’s announcement, he was walking through the student union and took a photo of a university sign saying “Our Core Values: Integrity, Respect, Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, Innovation.” Closing the DEI offices, Jackson wrote, “directly contradicts these institutional values.”
He isn’t the only dean at the University of Michigan who spoke out last week in defense of diversity. Kyle D. Logue, interim dean of the law school, wrote in a letter to colleagues Thursday that the decision to halt DEI would have “no operational effect at the Law School because of how we have understood and implemented DEI over the years.” The law school has never had a separate DEI office because “the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion have long been central to everything we do” and “we remain steadfast in our commitment to these values.”
On Friday, thousands of faculty, staff, and students tuned in virtually to what was billed as an emergency meeting to plan strategies to combat the DEI decision. Some faculty members suggested work stoppages, and students suggested walkouts. Elizabeth James, the adviser to the Black Student Union, told how her mother, a Black woman, lived in a segregated part of the city while she was a graduate student at Ann Arbor in the mid-1950s. James, who’s a program associate in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, said she worried that decades of progress since then was being sacrificed for political expediency.
Among those who welcomed Jackson’s initial, more defiant, stance was Chinedum Okwudire, a professor of mechanical engineering at Michigan. He wrote on LinkedIn that “while I have been disheartened by leaders like Santa J. Ono who have been quick to 'obey in advance,’ and betray deeply ingrained values of the University of Michigan around DEI, it is heartening to see a true leader, Dean Carlos Francisco Jackson, who has decided to 'stand out, because someone has to.’”
Steven McGuire, a fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit focused on issues including academic freedom and accountability and financed in part by grants from conservative-leaning foundations, said he felt the dean’s initial email was “inappropriate.”
“It would be different if he were speaking as an individual faculty member, but I find the act of contradicting the administration on that problematic,” he said in an interview on Monday. Plenty of people besides Trump have complaints about DEI, McGuire said, for reasons Jackson didn’t address in his letter. They argue that diversity statements can impede academic freedom, and that DEI efforts at Michigan have made little headway in increasing the proportion of Black students among the undergraduate population. A dean, McGuire said, “shouldn’t put his thumb on the scale of one particular interpretation.”
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