I have friends in faculty positions at well-known universities who were very unhappy about these practices, but could not publicly discuss it fearing repercussion, prior to these events.
TBC, I am not supporting any of the things happening. I do think the DEI thing went too far, but what the new admin. is doing can be much worse.
From the journalism department at CU [1]:
> Our commitment, should we be successful with this application, is to hire someone from the BIPOC community
From the geography department at CU [1]:
> Our aim is specifically to hire a Black, Indigenous, or Latinx faculty member
From ethnic studies at UC [1]:
> We have an urgent and qualified need for BIPOC femme/women of color faculty in an Africana Studies focus who will contribute to the social science division thematic cluster hire in racism and racial inequality.
From psychology dept. at U Washington [2]:
> I advise deleting the statement below as it shows that URM [underrepresented minority] applications were singled out and evaluated differently than non-URM applications (which is not allowed as [redacted] noted)
> At a faculty meeting, someone whose name is redacted “informed faculty that the Hiring Committee had three outstanding candidates and so they used DEI to distinguish and select a first offer"
[1] https://www.wsj.com/opinion/how-dei-conquered-the-university...
[2] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/diversity...
You mention in another comment diversity in admissions but that is not hiring or grants. Do you have any examples of hiring people based on race in academia?