In our first article, we discussed at a high level the contributions from faculty and administrations to political parties in the 2024 Presidential election at Georgia’s three large research institutions. We will set aside the fourth, Augusta University, for a while because its faculty contributions are dwarfed by the other three and represent only 6% of the total.
In the first article, we discussed the importance of setting a political fairness tone for the school and how this often originates from the top of the administration and oversight committees. But where is the top? If the donations varied by school, then we would assume that the “top” is the president of the individual schools. If the donations all look the same, we believe the pressure to conform comes from someone or some group above the individual school level.
Faculty and Staff Lockstep
Below are charts showing the donations reported by OpenSecrets.org for the thirty-five-year period from 1990 to 2024. This period is critical because it clearly illustrates our universities’ politicization and reveals the lockstep nature of this change.
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
Leroy Jethro Gibbs, NCIS (Mark Harmon)
The 2000s have become an era of the rise in wokeness, campus unrest, rising antisemitism, and national disillusionment with big governments. It is, in some ways, a repeat of the 1960s, almost like the wealthy little anarchists of that era want one more ride across campus as they leave the planet. It can be described as those who failed then, living vicariously through their grandchildren. They were on the wrong side of history then and are teaching their grandchildren how to fail now.
Amazing Symmetry
As you can see from these three charts, there is an amazing symmetry between political donations from the faculty and employees in all three schools. This similarity is mirrored so closely that I thought there must be leftist-leaning pressure from the Board of Regents by “telegraphing” their political leaning, hiring, or both. Shifts like this can come from hiring practices, direction from the top, or repression of thought and action. It seems highly unlikely that all three universities would suddenly shift from politically neutral to far left on their own. However, this connection between colleges and universities and the Board of Regents seems missing, but the symmetry is real.
Just How Bad It Is
A simple search of the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech websites produces thousands of links for the topics of DEI, Critical Race Theory, Climate Change, Green New Deal, Queer Theory, and Safe Spaces. While these are scattered across dates, articles, organizations, and administration areas, they indicate the degree of integration of the ideologies.
In 2023, the Georgia Legislature passed a Bill requiring its public colleges and universities to stop requiring diversity statements as a part of employee training. The schools are also barred from requiring applicants and employees to fill out statements affirming diversity stances. The schools have also been instructed to stop using DEI verbiage in teaching and training.
But will they change? We plan to follow our top three research universities during 2025 to see what happens. So far, the reaction seems to be resistance, obfuscation, and deception. What we are seeing in Washington with the DOGE discovery of corruption may be played out in a smaller way on our campuses.
An article in The College Fix on January 25, 2025, noted that Georgia Tech announced that it planned to embed its DEI efforts into its academic and administrative units. Like donations, this seems to be a universally well-defined strategy among all three.
The University of Georgia still lists an Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion on its official website within the College of Education. However, the significant effort has shifted to the Office of Inclusive Excellence. This is nothing more than a rebranding and hiding their DEI effort.
The Office of Inclusive Excellence lists these groups and organizations under campus resources.
- Asian American Student Association
- Association of Chinese American Professors
- Black Affairs Council (BAC)
- Campus Ministry Association (CMA)
- Hispanic Student Association
- UGA Chapter of NAACP
- UGA Hillel
- UGA Peace Corps
- African Studies Institute
- Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
- Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education
- Institute for African American Studies
- Institute of Native American Studies
- Institute for Women’s Studies
- International Student Life (ISL)
- Multicultural Services and Programs
- Office of Global Engagement
- Pride Center
Each requires time, energy, oversight, money, and other resources. Although they may provide marginal value, they keep students from blending into a single student body and, ultimately, the fabric of our nation. These groups push students toward tribalism and identity politics, which voters have rejected.
Missing the Point, As Usual
Our university administrators miss out on the fact that costs and tuition are out of control. Every program carries a cost in administration, office space, staff, and other support overhead. Programs such as these detract from teaching and water down the core educational mission. A new department like UGA’s Office of Inclusive Excellence has a top administrator, a staff of seven other people with important sounding titles, five graduate assistants, and who knows how much other support staff. They must have office space, furniture, utilities, and other overhead expenses.
Based on a recent review of the official websites of our three top research universities, my early assessment is that they do not realize things are changing. They view their goals and responsibilities as hiding their DEI and CRT efforts and not complying with state regulations. As they have for the past twenty years, they are misreading voters, parents, and taxpayers.
What Class Listings Say About Direction
I started to list the majors and classes where the University of Georgia had “hidden” DEI, and the list became so long that it was futile. However, here is an example from the course catalog listing on their website on February 4, 2025, for a course identified as ECHD 3030—Counseling and Human Development Services (Diversity and Helping Skills).
“Examines multicultural factors within a psychosocial, sociopolitical, historical context. Students evaluate privilege as a system, its inherent characteristics and mechanisms, and the systems’s balance of power that oppresses less privileged. Diversity will be examined pedagogically and personally to facilitate increased multicultural understanding in counseling and human development.”
This is nothing more than DEI and CRT disguised as a sociology course. Perhaps the professors should take an English writing class and learn that “systems’s” is correctly spelled “systems.’” From my perspective, a course to teach and reinforce victimhood. As of this writing, UGA still offers a major in Gender Studies, the worst of all for employment opportunities where listings include academia, news media, non-profits, and politics.
Not to be outdone, a brief search of Georgia Tech’s website identifies a minor in Social Justice where:
“The minor in Social Justice is for undergraduate students who are interested in incorporating an in-depth awareness of social issues into their fields of study and careers. Humanities and social science classes included in the minor address issues of equity and inclusiveness in relation to historical, cultural, social, economic, political, and/or techno-scientific factors.”
Finally, Georgia State University seems to have dissolved its DEI Office and moved to more balanced discussions. However, the remnants of DEI continue in majors like sociology.
“Sociology students explore fascinating and controversial topics such as crime, deviance, social inequity, gender roles, family life, racism and prejudice, globalization, work and occupations. Understanding what drives human interactions gives students a new perspective on their place in society.”
All three universities need to make more changes to dissolve the vestiges of DEI, CRT, and other topics the State Legislature wants out of our curriculum. Parents must demand these changes or for a new administration.
The Big Three or All
Next, we will collect and present information on all of Georgia’s colleges and universities under the control and oversight of the Board of Regents. Do they all look like these three, or do the smaller schools mirror voters’ preferences more closely?
Up next – A look at all colleges and universities under the control of the Georgia Board of Regents
The Balanced Education Myth 5
The Balanced Education Myth 4
The Balanced Education Myth 3
The Balanced Education Myth 2
The Balanced Education Myth 1
The Balanced Education Myth
Resources and Further Reading
2024 United States presidential election in Georgia, Wikipedia, wikipedia.org, Last accessed January 21, 2025.
5 out of 11 University of Georgia humanities departments have zero Republican professors: survey, By Matt Lamb, The College Fix, thecollegefix.com, October 3, 2022.
Colleges prepare for new legal and political terrain under Trump, By Lexi Lonas Cochran, The Hill, thehill.com, January 8, 2025.
Democratic Politicians Are in Denial on the Education Crisis, By Michael R. Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal, wsj.com, January 31, 2025.
Don’t Tell Me Where Your Priorities Are – James W. Frick, By Jessica Wei, Due, due.com, March 21, 2023.
Gender-Inclusive Restrooms Offer Safe Space for UGA Community, By Grady Capstone Journalist, Grady Newsource, gradynewsource.uga.edu, February 21, 2020.
Georgia Colleges to Ban DEI Programs and Shift to Founding Documents: ‘This Is a New Era!’ Sparks Heated Debate, EconoTimes, econotimes.com, November 25, 2024.
Georgia GOP senators take on ‘woke’ education with anti-DEI bill, By Doug Richards, 11 Alive, 11alive.com, February 28, 2023.
Georgia Institute of Technology, CRT, criticalrace.org, Last accessed January 31, 2025.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Online Course Catalog, Minor in Social Justice, Georgia Institute of Technology, gatech.edu, Last accessed February 4, 2025.
Georgia Institute of Technology, Open Secrets Database, opensecrets.org, Last accessed January 30, 2025.
Georgia public colleges put end to required DEI statements in hiring, By Laura Spitalniak, Higher Ed Dive, highereddive.com, August 31, 2023.
Georgia State University, CRT, criticalrace.org, Last accessed January 31, 2025.
Georgia State University, Open Secrets Database, opensecrets.org, Last accessed January 30, 2025.
Georgia universities rebrand, rename diversity efforts in wake of new anti-DEI regulations, By Garrett Marchand, The College Fix, thecollegefix.com, January 15, 2024.
Pride Center, Student Affairs, University of Georgia, pride.uga.edu, Last accessed January 31, 2025.
The University of Georgia, Critical Race Courses, EDUC 8400, ESOC 5070/7070, ESOC 7070E, JURI 4235/6235, JURI 4831/6831, UGA Bulletin, bulletin.uga.edu, Search “Critical Race Theory,” Last Accessed January 31, 2025.
The University of Georgia, On-line Course Catalog, ECHD – 3030, University of Georgia, uga.edu, Last accessed February 4, 2025.
UGA Professor on Critical Race Theory, By Alexia Ridley, WUGA, University of Georgia, wuga.org, June 3, 2021.
University of Georgia, CRT, criticalrace.org, Last accessed January 31, 2025.
University of Georgia, DEI, uga.edu, Last Accessed and Searched February 1, 2025.
University of Georgia, Open Secrets Database, opensecrets.org, Last accessed January 30, 2025.
University System of Georgia to ban DEI, commit to neutrality, teach Constitution, By Tate Miller, The Center Square, thecentersquare.com, November 23, 2024.
Where does Georgia stand in the efforts against diversity, equity, and inclusion in education? By Akilah Winters, 11 Alive, 11alive.com, March 23, 2024.
Will Trump’s position on DEI further affect Georgia? State has already opposed it before, By Myracle Lewis, The Macon Telegraph, macon.com, January 15, 2025.
Words like ‘diversity,’ and ‘inclusion’ to be removed from Georgia teaching program standards, Associated Press, apnews.com, June 9, 2023.
Note
The information in these articles on the Balanced Education Myth was developed using the data readily available on the website opensecrets.org. Not all colleges can be found on this website, indicating they had no donations or omissions by OpenRecords.org or their data sources. However, we believe their records to be either complete or as complete as possible.
It is possible for a conservative faculty member to bypass the data collection process by donating through a spouse or other source. Given the consistency of the data across all colleges and universities we believe this to be a minor source of error if at all.
