University of Michigan Is the Latest Woke Institution to Bend the Knee to Trump's New Reality

It’s only been a little over two months, but hot damn have we seen a lot of changes in America since Donald Trump replaced moldering ole Joe Biden as commander-in chief. Where do we even start? He’s reinvigorated the military, cut billions in waste and fraud with the help of Elon Musk and DOGE, shut the southern border, and so much more that it’s hard to keep up with sometimes.

He and his team have been winning on ridding the federal government of the poisonous ideology known as “DEI"—diversity, equity and inclusion, which I would more aptly describe as “discrimination, exclusion, and division.”

He’s also been effectively using the threat of cutting federal funding to force our nation’s corrupt academic “elite” to stop allowing men to compete in women’s sports and to discontinue favoring some students over others based on their race.

The University of Michigan is the latest to wake up to the new reality. Bye-bye, DEI:

The University of Michigan announced it will be closing the doors of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office on Thursday.
In a message to the university, the president and other top leaders said that due to recent executive orders from President Donald Trump as well as funding uncertainty, they will be doing away with their DEI programming.

BREAKING: University of Michigan will shut down its entire DEI bureaucracy. Our campaign to fight racialist ideologies and abolish DEI is winning. Congratulations to @RegentHubbard and the rest of the board. pic.twitter.com/W46FWqWGT4
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 27, 2025

'Promises Made, Promises Kept'—Trump Yanks Millions in Funding From Ivy League University

The University, located in one of the most leftist locations in the entire country—Ann Arbor—went all in on DEI in recent years, giving the impression that they cared about virtually nothing else:

To my knowledge, Michigan had the largest full-time DEI staff of any university in the nation — 249 employees by 2024.

The payroll for this sprawling bureaucracy could have covered the in-state tuition of nearly 1,800 students. https://t.co/MJfuClrNjx pic.twitter.com/csYRqUHR2O
— i/o (@alkonata) March 27, 2025

Here’s what your young, impressionable student could have learned about as you forked over thousands of dollars in tuition:

The University of Michigan started its "inaugural DEI strategic plan" in 2016, then developed a DEI 2.0 Strategic Plan for 2023-2028.
Some of the action items for the plan included "Enhancing International Graduate Student Diversity," "Enhancing Black Student Representation & Experiences," "DEI in Carbon Neutrality and Sustainability Efforts," and "Enhancing Religious, Spiritual & Interfaith Diversity on Campus."
The New York Times reported the University of Michigan had spent approximately $250 million on DEI efforts through last fall, and a report from The Heritage Foundation found the institution had 163 DEI personnel.

Two hundred and fifty million dollars?! That massive sum could have funded a whole lot of scholarships.

Now, as some astute readers will point out, this doesn’t necessarily mean the end of woke efforts at the progressive hotbed that infects Michigan. They will rename things, they will farm out their efforts to departments that don’t have the letters “DEI” in them, and they will continue to try to surreptitiously enforce their divisive doctrines on young minds.

That being said, this is progress, and Rome wasn’t built in a day. Trump is making inroads in so many areas and has worked to kill the "woke mind virus."

Add this as another solid win.

You can help us fight the “woke mind virus.”

Although we’re winning at the moment, the fight is far from over. Help continue the Trump momentum and erase the failures of the last four years of Biden malaise.

Consider becoming part of the RedState team and joining our VIP membership today. Use promo code FIGHT to get a whopping 60% off.