Red state university pours millions into wokeness, hosts federally-funded ‘nonbinary’ rock-climbing

The Ohio State University (OSU) spends over $13 million on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff and hosts a multitude of “radical left-wing” courses and programs, a report released Monday found.

The school spent $13.3 million in 2023 on salaries for its 201 DEI employees, which is the equivalent of the cost of tuition for over 1,000 students at OSU, Open The Books found. OSU also highlights gender and sexuality topics in several courses, such as “Sexualities and Citizenship” and “Queer Ecologies.”

OSU’s two highest-paid DEI officials both made nearly $300,000 in 2023, with 29 others making over 100,000, according to Open The Book’s report. Several employees are part of the “Diversity & Inclusion” or “Institutional Equity” offices, while others are professors within departments such as the “women’s gender and sexuality studies.”

DEI courses at the university dive into topics such as the “lesbian experience in the United States” and seek to “disrupt the gendered and heterosexual assumptions embedded in how we understand the environment, nature, and bodies,” the descriptions read.

“From animal studies, queer and feminist social movements for environmental justice, trans*natures, and sexual politics, Queer Ecologies will articulate a commitment to new thinking about the challenges of planetary and climate change,” one class promises.

Some DEI programs at OSU have been bankrolled by taxpayer funds, Open The Books found.

OSU has received over $3 billion in federal grants since 2020 to host programs such as the National Science Foundation for the Girls* on Rock, which aims to provide “16-18-year-old girls and nonbinary individuals with immersive, hands-on experiences in the geosciences, combined with elements of artistic expression and technical rock climbing in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado,” according to Open The Books. Another program explores “Vaccine Hesitancy” around Covid, one from the National Science Foundation looks at how to combat “misinformation during crises,” and another tackles “cultural resistance in the USA and Europe [that] impedes the acceptance of insect proteins as food sources.”

The university has also accepted $203.5 million in funding from foreign sources, including $15.8 million from China and $7.7 million from Saudi Arabian sources, according to Open The Books. Foreign nations, particularly China, have for years poured millions into American universities in order to influence what is being taught to students, increasing the likelihood of institutions silencing political speech that goes against their foreign donors.

Several states have banned DEI in higher education, including Idaho, Texas and Florida, while some schools are considering shutting down their DEI offices over the programs’ failures.One report analyzing the University of Michigan’s inclusion program found that its DEI office failed to increase diversity in the school’s student body and inadvertently intensified racial relations on campus.

OSU did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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