The University of Michigan’s unsuccessful diversity, equity and inclusion program could soon get an overhaul, and administrators who oversee it aren’t happy.

“It is my hope that our efforts in DEI focus on redirecting funding directly to students and away from a bloated administrative bureaucracy,” Democratic UM Regent Mark Bernstein told The New York Times.

A Times investigation in October found UM has spent about a quarter billion dollars on DEI initiatives since it created one of the largest university programs in the country in 2016. A review by UM’s DEI office last spring found 56% of that spending went to salaries and benefits for DEI staff across the universities three campuses, though some regents believe it’s more.

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Documents obtained by The College Fix this summer revealed significant sums also went toward DEI events featuring paid speakers and entertainment, catering, and party supplies.

A DEI Summit “Truth Telling: The Kinship of Critical Race Theory and Hip-Hop” cost about $100,000 for a single day, with $60,000 for keynote speakers, and $32,564 for catering, audio equipment, decorations, and photography.

UM spent another $6,650 on other performers, $1,750 on a mobile espresso cart, $395 on a photo booth, and $550 on a cotton candy cart, records show.

The summit, coordinated through UM’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Michigan Medicine, featured hip-hop artist and social activist David Banner, who was paid $25,000 for a 10-minute “TED-style remark” and 45-minute roundtable discussion with other panelists on “critical race theory and hip hop,” according to his contract.

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The university paid hip-hop artist Marianna Evans Rapsody, known by the stage name Rapsody, $35,000 for the roundtable discussion and a musical performance.

Contracts for both artists also included first-class plane tickets for each, coach tickets for travel companions, transportation, lodging, and meals for two nights.

The event, one of several promoting DEI at UM, is in addition to at least 241 employees focused on DEI with payroll costs of roughly $30.68 million, or enough to “cover in-state tuition and fees for 1,781 undergraduate students” at a university that’s heavily subsidized by taxpayers, according to The Fix.

Beyond the money, Republican Regent Sarah Hubbard told The Times the growing use of diversity statements across the university has resulted in a less diverse faculty.

“We must do better in hiring a wide variety of voices in our faculty so that we’re teaching a wide variety of opinions to our students,” Hubbard said.

Research has also shown UM’s DEI efforts have not produced the desired results.

“In a survey released in late 2022, students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging,” according to an investigation by The New York Times Magazine published in October. “Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics – the exact kind of engagement DEI programs, in theory, are meant to foster.”

Regents told The Times they expect the board will move to impose limits on diversity statements in hiring, and to shift more of the DEI budget toward recruitment and tuition assistance for lower-income students in the near future.

But the talks of reform, and criticism of DEI programs more broadly from President-elect Donald Trump, are already igniting opposition to change from both students and the DEI administrators who rely on the program to make a living.

On Monday, hundreds rallied in Ann Arbor as part of a campaign to promote UM’s DEI efforts.

“I don’t think a single person in this audience thinks that the DEI initiatives at this university are perfect,” junior Pragya Choudhary told rallygoers. “But I know that every single person here knows that without those initiatives, this university would be a worse place yet.”

American culture professor Su’ad Abdul Khabeer claimed concerns about UM’s DEI program are “a thinly veiled attempt at thought suppression on campus.”

Others including UM school of medicine project manager Heidi Bennett support the massive spending on DEI she said needed “institutional structures – whether that’s money or an office or staff members or committees – to make it actionable.”

“Otherwise, it’s just performative,” she said at the rally, “and we’re just perpetuating inequality.”