Waste of the Day: $10 Million for DEI Employees at Rutgers

Topline: Rutgers University, the flagship state school in New Jersey, spent $10 million on payroll for 136 employees in DEI roles in 2023, according to payroll records obtained by OpenTheBooks.com. 

DEI goes beyond those listed in specific roles at Rutgers

The dollar figure is a low-end estimate. It does not include several dozen more employees who are not listed as DEI workers on the payroll but contribute to diversity groups and teams throughout the university.

Key facts: The two highest-paid DEI employees each earned $341,746 in 2023: Michelle Stephens, the executive director of the Institute for Global Racial Justice, and Enobong Branch, the senior vice president for equity and inclusion.

In total, 32 DEI employees earned $100,000 or more.

Sixty-six employees were part of the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality department, including three who earned more than $200,000.

That department has expanded from traditional women’s studies — studying historic gender roles, women’s struggles and contributions — to one that has sexuality studies and social justice at its focus, offering courses like “Social Justice Movements” and “Poverty, Inequality, and Gender.”

Besides the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies major, students can choose from the department’s following four minors: Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Critical Sexualities, Social Justice, and Gender and Media.

Secondary DEI roles

OpenTheBooks’ DEI count did not include employees who are only involved with DEI as a secondary job responsibility, but those workers add even more money to the payroll.

The highest-paid is Dr. Haejin In. He makes $533,353 as a surgical oncologist, but he’s also the Associate Director of DEI and Chief Diversity Officer at Rutgers Cancer Institute. Sangeeta Lamba, who works in the “emergency medicine” field according to official payroll records, is also a leader on the Faculty Diversity Collaborative Team. 

Search all federal, state and local government salaries and vendor spending with the AI search bot, Benjamin, at OpenTheBooks.com. 

Background: Rutgers pays its employees with help from New Jersey taxpayer funds and also accepts billions from the federal government. Since 2020, the university has accepted $3 billion in federal contracts and grants.

The Department of Health and Human Services awarded $1.2 billion of grants since 2020. The National Science Foundation and Departments of Education, Defense and Agriculture were other top funders.

The grants included a $297,425 award to convince Americans to eat more farmed seafood and $60,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts to “support an ethnographic case study of the role of hip-hop-based arts education in facilitating youth community-building, agency, and activism.”

Summary

Supporting quote: Rutgers has already begun canceling some DEI programming in accordance with President Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order that threatened to cut federal funding to public universities, but not without controversy.

Ras J. Baraka, the mayor of Newark where one or Rutgers’ campuses is located, said on X that

Rutgers, and any other schools preemptively pulling DEI programming, is an utter failure of courage in the face of political foolishness….

Rutgers should not feel alone in the face of this bully … We can give them the strength to lead the charge against these backwards directives.

Rutgers, and any other schools preemptively pulling DEI programming, is an utter failure of courage in the face of political foolishness. We know better.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not just buzzwords—they are proven strategies that make our workplaces more productive,…— Ras J. Baraka (@rasjbaraka) January 25, 2025

Summary: It remains to be seen whether Rutgers will truly downsize its DEI department or merely find creative ways to disguise the employees in its payroll.  

The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.

This article was originally published by RCI and made available via RealClearWire.