RALEIGH (March 6, 2025) – Call it the DEI squirrel.
Wade Maki, a pony-tailed philosophy lecturer at UNC Greensboro and Chair of the UNC System Faculty Assembly, speaks at every meeting of the UNC System’s Board of Governors.
And Maki has a unique way to underscore the absurdity of the current hysteria over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs on college campuses.
In his presentation to the Board last week, he first shared a slide that displays an elephant in a business conference room. He then recounted how a colleague who opposes DEI and volunteered to join a committee to study the issue had his entire salary counted in one report as part of “$90 million” the UNC System allegedly spends on DEI.
Maki then shared a press release last month from U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chair Ted Cruz that claimed to have identified 3,400 in “woke” grants totaling $2 billion from the National Science Foundation that were “diverted” to DEI programs.1
And – horrors! – a grant to UNCG appeared on the list.
Upon investigation, Maki discovered the research project by a UNCG biologist on bio–diversity had identified a new breed of squirrel, Urocitellus idahoensis, the Snake River Plains ground squirrel.2
Maki then shared an image of the offending squirrel.
“Now I’m no expert, but this squirrel doesn’t look that ‘woke’ to me,” Maki said.
The room erupted in laughter, which only served to underscore how shallow and absurd the current purge of DEI programs is, driven by random searches for radioactive keywords.
Into just which racial category would Urocitellus idahoensis fit? 🤔
Maki’s point: We need a more nuanced conversation – rather than a 20-something plugging keywords into an AI search engine – about just what DEI means.
Or, for that matter, what “woke” means.
1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ0ustZJsw8.
2 https://research.uncg.edu/news/uncg-researcher-identifies-snake-river-plains-ground-squirrel/.
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