© Jack Cashill
Published in WND.com - June 1, 2016

To heal the self-inflicted wounds brought on by its obsession with “diversity” the cash-starved University of Missouri is planning to spend $2 million on new diversity initiatives, including $1.1 million on a “diversity audit.”

As the reader may recall, a black student protest on the Columbia campus last fall resulted in a threatened play stoppage by the football team, the resignation of both the MU system president and the MU-Columbia chancellor, and widespread condemnation of the nonsense by Missouri alumni and citizens.

The alleged incidents that triggered the revolt, most notably the notorious poop swastika, were embarrassingly trivial even if true, but there has been nothing trivial or illusionary about the backlash.

Freshman enrollment is down a catastrophic 25 percent. This has forced the closure of four dorms and left a $32 million funding gap. Donations to the athletic program and the university in general have dropped precipitously.

None of these problems, however, has dissuaded interim university president, Michael Middleton, from sinking a million-plus into a diversity audit.

“This assessment will help us understand where we stand in comparison to our peer institutions and best practices in higher education,” said Middleton, as though academic “peer institutions” offer anything like a standard gauge of sanity.

In a private email sent after he stepped down, former President Tim Wolfe said this about Middleton, who had headed up the diversity and inclusion initiative at MU for the past 17 years.

“Why did the Board of Curators decide to hire the leader who had failed miserable in his capacity as the longtime leader on diversity issues on the MU campus?” Wolfe asked in an unusual burst of candor.

He added, “Why did Michael Middleton choose not to stop the growing protest in spite of his relationship with Jonathan Butler and the minority students on the MU campus?”

A graduate student, Butler had gone on a hunger strike to protest white privilege, a protest rendered more than a little bit foolish when it was revealed that Butler’s father makes $8 million-a-year as a marketing executive.

The football team went on strike to support Butler, a move that was all but endorsed by football coach and temporary media hero Gary Pinkel.

“The football team’s actions were the equivalent of throwing gasoline on a small fire,” said Wolfe. “Coach Pinkel missed an important opportunity to teach his players a valuable life lesson. The end result could be a financial catastrophe for our university.”

This chaos will likely result in an athletic catastrophe as well. The team had lost four straight games in the highly competitive SEC before the strike. Had they been winning, it is doubtful there would have been a strike.

Chances are they will not be winning much in the future. The media did their best to convince black recruits that the campus was as hospitable to African-Americans as an Aryan Nation camp in the Idaho wilds.

As to the potential white recruits, many of their parents, like the parents of so many would-be freshmen, have seen the madness and steered their kids away.

So what’s a contemporary university to do? Yes, send in the clowns, in this case the happy culture warriors from the IBIS Consulting Group, “a recognized leader in the field of D&I.”

For those who may need re-education, D&I means “diversity and inclusion,” two concepts so wonderfully slippery that even Orwell could not have imagined them.

IBIS practices what it preaches. Just in case any one might have had any doubts, the firm tells us in bold face, “IBIS is certified as a woman and minority owned business.”

Doing double affirmative action duty for IBIS is its principal, a youngish woman from India. The affirmative action apparently compensates for the horrors we have imposed on India and the hatred we have showered on its people.

Remember? No, neither do I.

In any case, IBIS will spend its million “interviewing students, professors and staff on all four campuses,” as if anyone, anywhere, would give a D&I pro a straight answer on what he (or she, of course) thinks about D&I, the racket by which these pros grow rich.

Sigh! I wish I paid taxes in some other state.

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