In March, Wyoming’s overwhelmingly Republican legislature slashed $1.7 million in state funding for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices. The UW Board of Trustees complied, closing its Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and reassigning its staff. It also prohibited the school from requiring potential faculty members to submit DEI statements during the hiring process and prevented DEI from being part of faculty promotion materials. UW’s vice president of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion left for another school in July, and the university appeared to shutter its Office of Multicultural Affairs in August.

Yet a closer look reveals that as DEI offices closed, many diversity efforts were rebranded under new names. Many of those offices’ personnel have simply gotten new job titles while still working on DEI projects...

Consider how the university closed the Office of Multicultural Affairs but opened the Pokes Center for Community Resources in its place. Any doubt about the center’s mission were dispelled by its announcement on social media: “We are still here!!!”