Mizzou flunked, and as an IT professional I know a rename job when one’s described to me.
In a hidden-camera video that Accuracy in Media says it shot in January, sociology chair Wayne Brekhus said the University of Missouri’s DEI changes were “mostly cosmetic” and that people had found “clever ways to continue to have DEI centers but not call them that.” The clip went viral on Monday, September 14, and that night the university’s X account answered:
Professor Brekhus’ conduct will be investigated and appropriate actions will be taken [appropriate to what? they didn’t say].
What conduct? Mizzou’s own statement says it “voluntarily eliminated all DEI programs and DEI requirements in the curriculum.” Brekhus posted “I apologize for my mistake.”
Here’s how IT handles this. Somebody tells you the old server is still running under a new hostname, you don’t write him up. You scan the network. The box answers or it doesn’t, and the logs settle it before lunch. (Printers get renamed after every reorg, too, and they still jam on the same page. Nobody investigates the printer.) Anyway.
Lt. Gov. Dave Wasinger, quoted in the same ABC 17 story: “Missouri taxpayers expect our public universities to educate, not indoctrinate.” If taxpayers are paying for the place and a department head tells a camera the rollback is a paint job, the people paying are owed a straight answer, which is fair, and it’s exactly why I’m angry: a straight answer lives in the budget ledger and the org chart, and Mizzou reached for a disciplinary file on one man instead.
FIRE says he shouldn’t be punished for protected speech, and I’d go further. If the rollback is real, punishing a guy for doubting it is thin-skinned. If it’s fake, he’s the only honest man in the building. Either way the university looks worse than the professor.
FAIL. Publish the ledger, drop the probe, and I’d buy a Mizzou sweatshirt tomorrow. Until then I’m keeping my money.