Top DEI staff at public universities pocket massive salaries as experts question motives of initiatives

Highest-paid diversity and inclusion employees rake in substantially more than the average full-time professor

Top diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) employees at major public universities earn massive six-figure salaries for leading initiatives that some experts found to be ineffective and instead enforce a “political orthodoxy.”

A review of salary data shows that the universities of Michigan, Maryland, Virginia and Illinois, plus Virginia Tech, boast some of the highest-paid DEI staffers at public universities, a Fox News review found. These institutions’ top diversity employees earn salaries ranging from $329,000 to $430,000 – vastly eclipsing the average pay for the schools’ full-time tenured professors.

Four of the colleges justified the DEI leaders’ salaries, citing the executives’ seniority and the importance of their responsibilities. The University of Illinois did not return a request for comment.

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