By Adam Andrzejewski of Open The Books substack
The University of Virginia (UVA) has at least 235 employees under its “diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)” banner — including 82 students — whose total cost of employment is estimated at $20 million. That’s $15 million in cash compensation plus an additional 30-percent for the annual cost of their benefits.
In contrast, last Friday, the University of Florida dismissed its DEI bureaucracy, saving students and taxpayers $5 million per year. The university terminated 13 full-time DEI positions and 15 administrative faculty appointments. Those funds have been re-programmed into a “faculty recruitment fund” to attract better people who actually teach students.
No such luck for learning at Virginia’s flagship university – founded by Thomas Jefferson no less. UVA has a much deeper DEI infrastructure.
Reform or abolition must await this summer’s anticipated changes in the school’s Board of Visitors. At least until then, the very highly compensated, generally non-teaching, DEI staffers are safely embedded throughout the entire university – while costing students and taxpayers a fortune.
Our team of auditors at OpenTheBooks.com reviewed the university payroll file for 2023 to sort out the DEI position head counts, compensation, and then estimated the cost of benefits.
Meet The Top Paid DEI Executives
Martin N. Davidson, senior associate dean of the Darden School of Business & global chief diversity officer, earns the most in a DEI role, at $452,000, or $587,340 including benefits. For comparison, Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia earned $175,000.
The second most highly compensated DEI executive is Kevin G. McDonald, the vice president for diversity, equity, inclusion and community partnerships, who takes home $401,465, or an estimated $520,000 with benefits.
Those in DEI leadership roles such as vice presidents, associate/assistant deans, directors, assistant directors and managers earned up to $312,000 last year, or $400,000 with benefits.
When McDonald began in his position in August 2019, he was making $340,000, eligible for a 10-percent bonus every year. His first year, he was given a $25,000 recruitment bonus and up to $30,000 for relocation costs, according to UVA records provided through the Virginia Freedom of Information Act.
Some of the DEI chiefs have been transparent about their philosophies during their public comments. For example, Rachel Spraker, an assistant vice president for equity & inclusive excellence – where she earned $186,800 last year or $242,840 with benefits – described the opioid epidemic in Appalachia as an example of “white toxicity.”
DEI staff aren’t the only well-paid employees in controversial roles at UVA.
Lanice Avery, an assistant professor of psychology in the departments of Psychology and Women, Gender and Sexuality, makes $102,200 ($132,860 with estimated benefits). She runs the Research on Intersectionality, Sexuality, and Empowerment (RISE) Lab at UVA and writes and speaks about black, female sexuality, and describes herself as a “board-certified sexologist” and speaks online about her orgasms.
UVA’s DEI Infrastructure
What does the DEI bureaucracy do?
There are 187 UVA employees and students dedicated to “assist and monitor all units of the University in their efforts to recruit and retain faculty, staff, and student from historically underrepresented groups and to provide affirmative and supportive environments for work and life…”
Here are some of the university agencies committed to the DEI mission. If you think you are seeing double in this list, you are right:
- Equity Center (110 employees total: 37 employees +73 students),
- Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (17 employees +1 student),
- Multicultural Student Services (6 employees +10 students),
- Office of Diversity & Engagement (3 employees + 4 students)
- Center for Diversity (4 students)
Included in the DEI employment roster are another 31 people working in DEI roles sprinkled throughout other departments, including the Urology Department, in Occupational Programs, for the School of Engineering and Applied Science, and other areas.
Then, there are another 48 employees and students working in roles related to DEI and advancing equality for women, minorities, etc.
- Maxine Platzer Lynn Women’s Center (21 employees, including 4 undergrad students/interns)
- Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights (16 employees working on Title IX compliance, sexual misconduct investigations and Americans with Disabilities Act compliance, among other things)
- Office of African American Affairs (4 employees)
- Center for Global Health Equity (4 employees and 3 student employees working on providing health services to mostly Third World countries)
Not included in the DEI numbers for this investigation were the Women, Gender and Sexuality Department with 10 professors making a collective $857,103 last year ($1.1 million with benefits) and the Psychology Department with 87 employees making $8.4 million ($11 million with benefits).
Adding to the confusion, the university has consistently undercounted DEI staffers in presentations to the public. In April 2023, Kevin McDonald told the New York Times that UVA had only 40 DEI employees. In May 2023, a presentation to the Board of Visitors claimed UVA had only 55 DEI positions.
Even our list of 235 employees is not complete. Here is a great example of an executive with a hidden DEI mission:
Kimberley Barker, Librarian for Digital Life ($80,000, or $104,000 with benefits). Barker isn’t in our database, however, she is the DEI leader for the Health System Library – the “IDEA (Inclusion Diversity Equity Accessibility) lead. Her university bio page lists her as the “Librarian for Belonging and Community Engagement.”
Summary
UVA was founded by Thomas Jefferson, the author of our Declaration of Independence. Jefferson’s work presented the moral case for a common freedom among all men. The university has an historic opportunity to promote the time-tested principles:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”
But, instead of working towards the ideal of the Shining City on the Hill under Jeffersonian principles, his university embraced the divisive quotas of the neo-Marxist DEI crowd.
Tens of millions of dollars in student tuition and taxpayer monies are flowing into promoting anti-American notions and radical philosophies that judge the color of one’s skin instead of the content – and competence – of their character.
Students, taxpayers and all who care about learning can look to Florida as the beacon of a new day. Perhaps Virginia, a birthplace of our Constitutional republic, home to birth places of individual rights and freedoms in America, will emulate the model.
