The University of California is changing its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, or EDI, Department into a new entity: the Office of Culture and Inclusive Excellence, known as the OCIE.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The change, which took effect last week at the UC Office of the President, or UCOP, according to a UC spokesperson, comes amid public battles between the UC system and President Donald Trump\u2019s administration over diversity initiatives.This includes a demand<\/a> issued by the Department of Justice to UCLA requiring that \u201cunlawful DEI goals\u201d be ended in exchange for $500 million of frozen federal research funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n The spokesperson did not comment on whether the transition was related to federal pressures to dismantle EDI. Moreover, it is unclear how OCIE is substantively different from its previous iteration at this time, besides the name change.\u00a0<\/p>\n The values of the office will remain the same; however, the transition reflects feedback on the EDI Department from a \u201cbroad range of stakeholders,\u201dprogram director Lalitha Sankaran wrote in a UCOP press release, which included UCOP staff.<\/p>\n Sankaran,who has previously held the position of UCOP\u2019s director of the Office of Workplace Inclusion and Belonging, will be leading the new office. She also led the EDI Department.<\/p>\n The office, however, will place a stronger emphasis on \u201corganizational culture and inclusive excellence,\u201d which UCOP believes will foster an atmosphere in which all employees can thrive through inclusive leadership.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe all staff should feel respected and have a sense of belonging and purpose in their work at UCOP,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement to The Daily Californian.<\/p>\n The transition comes in an uncertain year for the status of EDI programs throughout the UC system. Since January, the Trump administration has made efforts<\/a> to undermine diversity, equity and inclusion efforts on the federal level through executive orders and the freezing of federal grants.In March, the UC system banned<\/a> the use of diversity statements in hiring.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, the UCOP released an FAQ document regarding the future of diversity, equity and inclusion within the UC system. In the statement, the University of California reiterated its commitment to equal participation in education and confirmed that all EDI-related academic job titles would remain unchanged. However, it noted that staff employee titles may be updated \u201cto reflect \u2026 our organizational mission.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently, positions under the UC-wide Human Resources Strategy & EDI staff are listed as vacant on UCOP\u2019s website. It is unclear whether these jobs will transition to the new OCIE department.<\/p>\n According to the new office\u2019s website, the OCIE will build culture-related and inclusive excellence through employee belonging, inclusive leadership and organizational culture.<\/p>\n \u201cBy placing greater emphasis on culture and inclusive excellence, UCOP is better positioned to advance its mission, strengthen collaboration with our campus partners, and more fully realize the University\u2019s public mandate,\u201d Sankaran wrote in the press release.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The University of California is changing its Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, or EDI, Department into a new entity:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[13439,1054,26888,143,145,144,26887,26886,1092,26885],"class_list":["post-39170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-diversity-and-inclusion","tag-doj","tag-lalitha-sankaran","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-office-of-culture-and-inclusive-excellence","tag-office-of-equity","tag-ucla","tag-ucop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}