EXCLUSIVE — The University of Virginia’s sprawling efforts to expand the left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion agenda cost roughly $20 million each year.
That’s according to a new analysis by the federal spending watchdog Open the Books, which obtained public records showing Thomas Jefferson’s UVA had at least 235 staffers in DEI-related roles in 2023. In turn, the public institution shelled out $15 million in compensation to these individuals combined, with another $5 million estimated to be paid in the form of benefits, such as healthcare and life insurance, the group found.
“With head counts in the hundreds and spending estimated at $20 million per year, the DEI infrastructure at UVA is funded with the equivalent of nearly 1,000 students paying tuition,” Open the Books CEO Adam Andrzejewski said. “Those are dollars not spent pursuing excellence within a college major field of study, but instead on radical ideologies and silly notions.”
The analysis, which was first shared with the Washington Examiner, underscores how DEI has been elevated to the forefront of higher education institutions in the United States. Its release comes as DEI continues to be a lightning rod issue, as conservatives liken it to discrimination due to the ideology’s focus on defining people by their race. It also comes as Republican-led states push back on DEI.
Last week, the University of Florida eliminated DEI positions and closed its Office of the Chief Diversity Officer — a move in accordance with new Florida regulations spearheaded by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). The University of Florida is reallocating $5 million in funds previously earmarked for DEI toward a faculty recruitment fund, the school said.
Open the Books tracked UVA’s highest-paid DEI staff, including senior associate dean and global chief diversity officer Martin N. Davidson, whose pay and benefits in 2023 likely cost the public university an estimated $587,340, according to the watchdog group. Davidson, who was paid $451,800 in salary, rose through the ranks at UVA after becoming associate dean and chief diversity officer between 2008 and 2011, and has been a consultant in Charlottesville, Virginia, for 30 years, corporate records show.
UVA’s vice president for DEI, Kevin McDonald, was paid $401,465, with Open the Books estimating a roughly $521,905 cost to taxpayers in 2023 when accounting for benefits. McDonald has worked at the University of Maryland, Johns Hopkins University, Virginia Tech, and other schools since 1999, including as chief DEI officer for the University of Missouri System.
Moreover, Open the Books analyzed the pay of other top UVA DEI staffers in 2023, such as chief diversity and community engagement officer Tracy Downs, who earned $312,000, with an estimated total cost of $405,600.
“At the University of Virginia, our commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion is intended to offer our students and community members the opportunity to engage with and learn from a wide range of people, ideas, and perspectives,” a UVA spokesperson told the Washington Examiner. “To achieve that, we welcome students, faculty, and staff who reflect the rich diversity of the Commonwealth we serve, we focus intently on teaching students to bridge differences in ideology, life experience, and other perspectives, and we strive to offer a wide range of points of view in the classroom and in programming around grounds.”
The spokesperson claimed that a “recent University analysis found that UVA has 55 dedicated DEI positions at an institution of more than 40,000 students, faculty, and staff.”
In 2020, the school decided to make a major foray into DEI initiatives in a plan estimated to cost $1 billion. In the wake of the death of George Floyd, University President Jim Ryan appointed a task force on racial equity that ultimately recommended ambitious goals for expanding DEI at the school.
Among the plans were endowments for an African American studies center and other equity plans, as well as goals to double the number of minority professors, increase the number of non-white students, remove or “contextualize” multiple statues on the school grounds, and undercut the historical representation of Jefferson, who had always been a revered figure among staff and students.
The Board of Visitors, a primary governing body of UVA, at the time largely endorsed the plan. However, the plan caused controversy among the Jefferson Council alumni group and others, including Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA), who appointed venture capitalist alumnus Bert Ellis to the board.
Ellis, who is a co-founder of the dissident alumni group and outspoken opponent of DEI, called on Youngkin immediately after his election to overhaul the leadership of public institutions in Virginia by appointing leaders who will stand in the way of implementing the ideology.
In a post for the Jefferson Council, Ellis wrote he believed Youngkin was “very interested in refocusing UVA and other colleges and K-12 schools in Virginia on educating students and not brainwashing them with the Woke/CRT/DEI mantras that have overtaken UVA and almost all other colleges and K-12 schools in Virginia and across our country.” Ellis noted that appointing opponents to leadership positions was the “only opportunity to change/reverse the path to wokeness that has overtaken our entire University.”
Just last week, however, UVA decided to rename its newly renovated main library, named after the university’s first president, Edwin Alderman, to honor its fourth president, Edgar F. Shannon Jr., because of Alderman’s views on race and eugenics — compared to Shannon’s move to bring more black students to UVA to protest the Vietnam War.
However, board of trustees member Paul Harris, who is black, ripped the move to censor Alderman, stating, “Renaming buildings is a discouraging reflection of our culture, a culture that is no friend to grace. Amid all the rancor, unrest, and uncertainty in our world today, I find it deeply disappointing that the naming and memorials committee expended so much effort looking backward into time, examining the character flaws of past leaders, and in the end, rendering its superior decision on historical figures they deemed too compromised, or too flawed.”
At UVA, its DEI staffers are scattered across almost a dozen offices.
The Equity Center counts 37 employees and 73 students, according to Open the Books. For instance, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion has 17 employees and one student, Multicultural Student Services has six employees and 10 students, and the Office of Diversity and Engagement has three employees and four students in its ranks, the watchdog said.
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“UVA is the legacy gift from Thomas Jefferson who authored the Declaration of Independence — the greatest document ever produced in the history of the world describing individual rights and human equality,” Andrzejewski said.
“Yet, today, the university has tarnished the Jeffersonian ideal and moved in the opposite philosophical direction by choosing to embrace DEI philosophies whose foundation comes from radical socialists and neo-Marxists,” he added.
