Diversity, equity, and inclusion campus regimes grow in unexpected places. Both the University of Alabama and Auburn University—schools popularly associated with traditional cultural values—have been slowly building DEI infrastructures for nearly a decade (see my recent report). Both universities emphasize the recruitment of students, faculty, and staff, with race as a central consideration. If the overt goal of these initiatives has been to boost minority enrollment, the programs have been failures: each university actually has fewer black students on campus than it did before instituting the programs. Instead, the schools have created an ideological and administrative superstructure that infuses DEI into every aspect of university life.

The University of Alabama emerged from under federal desegregation orders only in 2000, when courts allowed that Alabama had made “serious progress” to remedy its past injustices. The university almost immediately announced aggressive minority recruitment programs and institutionalized them under its 2008 strategic plan. Stuart Bell, who became president of Alabama in 2015, unveiled the “Advancing the Flagship” Strategic Plan, emphasizing DEI in recruitment, the following year. In 2017, Alabama hired an associate provost for DEI, G. Christine Taylor. Efforts redoubled after the 2020 urban riots around the United States, when Bell’s special DEI committee issued a “Path Forward Diversity Report.”

Minority student recruitment is of utmost importance at Alabama. The university’s DEI office schedules visits specifically from majority-black high schools under a program called Our Bama. The Multicultural Visitation Program also brings minorities to campus for special visits. Alabama funds a “return to high school” program, where black graduates visit their alma maters to sing the glories of the Alabama experience. The Black Alumni Association holds several events each year, including college prep workshops for minority junior high school students across the state. The provost funds special minority-focused scholarships. Other programs like BRIDGE and Lucy’s Legacy are designed to retain minority students at the university. SAT and ACT scores are now optional in the university’s Honors College, since such tests have a disparate racial impact.

[I hope you don’t hit a paywall on this – I didn’t but it did act funky on me. ~ Beege]