A UCSD plan to create a new vice chancellor position in charge of campus "equity, diversity, and inclusion” has drawn sharp criticism from Heather Mac Donald, a contributing editor to City Journal, the magazine published four times a year by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

In a piece this month entitled Less Academics, More Narcissism , Mac Donald writes:

"Even as UC campuses jettison entire degree programs and lose faculty to competing universities, one fiefdom has remained virtually sacrosanct: the diversity machine.

"Not only have diversity sinecures been protected from budget cuts, their numbers are actually growing.

"The University of California at San Diego, for example, is creating a new full-time vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion"

(89.3 KPCC, Southern California Public Radio, is featuring a radio interview with the Manhattan Institute's Mac Donald regarding her UCSD criticism today.)

Mac Donald goes on to say, "This position would augment UC San Diego’s already massive diversity apparatus, which includes the Chancellor’s Diversity Office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, the assistant vice chancellor for diversity, the faculty equity advisors, the graduate diversity coordinators, the staff diversity liaison, the undergraduate student diversity liaison, the graduate student diversity liaison, the chief diversity officer, the director of development for diversity initiatives, the Office of Academic Diversity and Equal Opportunity, the Committee on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation Issues, the Committee on the Status of Women, the Campus Council on Climate, Culture and Inclusion, the Diversity Council, and the directors of the Cross-Cultural Center, the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center, and the Women’s Center."

UCSD's move, spearheaded by outgoing chancellor Marye Anne Fox, is said have been primarily motivated by a string of racially-charged incidents, including a fraternity party mocking Black History month called the "Compton Cookout" and articles appearing in the Koala, an alternative campus paper.

This week, Ana Baiz-Torres, hired by UCSD to raise money for diversity efforts, filed suit against the university, alleging that she had been fired for complaining about on-campus bias and discrimination.

According a description of the diversity position on the chancellor's website, "a key task of the new VC EDI will be to develop an appropriate organizational framework either through collaborations and/or by strengthening existing partnerships with diversity and outreach functions across campus that affect all members of our University community.

"As initially proposed, student and staff diversity liaisons are indirect reports to the VC EDI, and faculty diversity is a direct report.  The VC EDI will establish an Advisory Council representing campus constituencies.  With the Board’s advice, the VC EDI will develop and implement a campus-wide strategic plan on equity, diversity and inclusion.

"The Strategic Plan will inform the final core administrative responsibilities, propose metrics to gauge progress, and identify potential additional areas of responsibility reporting directly to the office of the VC EDI.  The VC EDI will serve as a member of the Chancellor’s executive Cabinet and will be an ex officio member of the Campus Climate Council and the Diversity Council. "