U of Michigan Says DEI Official Fired Over ‘Behavior’ at Protest, Conference

The firing of a University of Michigan official has raised questions about who was involved in the decision as well as why exactly the diversity, equity and inclusion leader was shown the door.

Many media outlets reported within the past few days that the university fired Rachel Dawson, who led the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives, after she allegedly made antisemitic comments at a conference in March. University officials initially declined to fire Dawson but reversed course after facing pressure from at least one member of the Board of Regents, The New York Times reported.

The university hasn’t said much publicly, but a single press statement released after the Times report complicated the narrative about Dawson’s termination. That statement pointed to not only unspecified behavior at a conference, but also unspecified behavior at an undated protest. The Times article didn’t mention a protest.

“Dawson was fired by the provost because her behavior as a university representative at a conference and during an on-campus protest was inconsistent with her job responsibilities, including leading a multicultural office charged with supporting all students, and represented extremely poor judgment,” university spokesperson Kay Jarvis wrote in an email.

The university didn’t provide an interview or answer written questions this week for more details about the firing. “We have nothing more to share from our end,” wrote Colleen Mastony, assistant vice president for public affairs, in an email. And the university hasn’t responded to Inside Higher Ed’s open records request seeking more information.

Rebekah Modrak, chair of the university’s Faculty Senate, told Inside Higher Ed that she personally witnessed Dawson standing up for students at an Aug. 28 pro-Palestine protest on the Diag, the heart of the flagship Ann Arbor campus.

“When our students peacefully protested on the Diag in August, and a group of us faculty watched warily as the university police prepared to arrest them, it was Ms. Dawson who protected the students by entreating the officers not to aggress them,” Modrak wrote in a statement. “Ms. Dawson protects all students.”

Modrak added that Dawson “has been critical of the regents’ authoritarian, punitive response to students on campus this year.” Now, Modrak wrote, the university’s elected Board of Regents has “fired a beloved Black woman staff member who supported students’ speech rights.”

Board Intervention?

Months before that protest, Dawson allegedly said in a private conversation that the “university was ‘controlled by wealthy Jews’” and “Jewish students were ‘wealthy and privileged’ and not in need of her office’s diversity services,” according to the Times. These comments were allegedly made to two professors at a March conference.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Michigan regional director, Carolyn Normandin, told Inside Higher Ed that her organization sent a letter to the university in early August “about antisemitic remarks made at a conference,” but she declined to specify further.

Originally, the university decided not to fire Dawson over those alleged comments, according to the Times. Instead, she would be required to take antisemitism and leadership training. At least one university board member took issue with that call.

That regent, Mark Bernstein, told university president Santa Ono and other leaders that Dawson should be terminated—and that the proposal to just require training “makes a mockery of your/our commitment to address antisemitism and broaden our DEI efforts to include antisemitism and/or Jewish students,” according to documents obtained by the Times.

Inside Higher Ed reached out to Bernstein and the other regents this week, but they didn’t provide comment. Only Jordan B. Acker and Sarah Hubbard responded, but they declined to comment. Hubbard did repost on X a supportive message about the firing, to which she added, “We must take a critical look at all of these programs. We can do better for our community, students, faculty and staff. #Regenting.”

Dawson took the reins at the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives in October 2023, just as the Israel-Hamas war and related campus protests also began.

The university, in a March profile of her on its website, had touted that “she is just the third leader of the organization, a testament to its strength in serving students from a variety of backgrounds across the University of Michigan.” But now the 36-year-old office needs to find a fourth leader.

The firing comes as many employees and students at the university worry that it’s preparing to significantly roll back DEI efforts in the wake of both Donald Trump’s re-election and an October Times investigation into DEI at the university. In that Times article, Bernstein criticized the university’s DEI office. Earlier this month, the university announced it’s no longer requiring diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure decisions.

And it’s another example of board members of universities getting involved in institutional issues that traditionally are managed by administrators or faculty.

A Conference and a Protest

After the ADL Michigan office shared the allegations with the university in August, the Times reported that university officials brought in a law firm to investigate. The firm found that the “weight of the available evidence supports ADL Michigan’s report”—even though “there is no recording of the conversation and no witness other than the reporting parties and the subject of the investigation.”

Dawson allegedly made the comments to Naomi Yavneh Klos, a professor at Loyola University New Orleans, and another unnamed professor at an American Association of Colleges and Universities conference. (A spokesperson for Yavneh Klos from the RW Jones Agency, a higher education public relations firm, told Inside Higher Ed that she couldn’t comment.)

Normandin, the ADL regional director, praised the university for taking “action on this.”

“These alleged remarks are deeply antisemitic, and I’m glad the university investigators found our complaint to be credible,” Normandin said. “I think it’s really a step toward restoring trust and ensuring Jewish students feel safe and supported.”

The alleged conference comments were the focus of the Times report on Dawson’s firing, which didn’t mention the protest at all. Although the university’s statement about Dawson didn’t specify the protest, her attorney, Amanda M. Ghannam, told Michigan Advance, a nonprofit news outlet, that the university was referencing the Aug. 28 pro-Palestinian protest.

“What Ms. Dawson did there was advocate for student protesters not to be violently arrested,” Ghannam told the Advance.

Ghannam and Dawson didn’t return Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment this week. Ghannam has said Dawson denies making antisemitic comments and plans to sue, arguing her First Amendment rights were violated.

Mastony, the university’s assistant vice president for public affairs, said in an August statement that four people—none of them students, but one a temporary employee—were arrested after disrupting a huge student organization fair.

“They were given multiple warnings that they were blocking pedestrian traffic and violating university policy” but refused to leave, Mastony wrote. She didn’t name them or their charges.

However, Modrak, the Faculty Senate chair, wrote in a recollection of that day that “there was plenty of space for movement.” She said she twice saw police arrest protesters. “Giant men mobbed a single person without provocation,” she wrote.

Modrak wrote to Inside Higher Ed that losing Dawson will harm students.

“She has built a remarkable community for students who deeply trust her,” Modrak said. “It is imperative (and rare) that marginalized students have an authority figure to rely on, who they know has their back. Ms. Dawson is a strong advocate for all students—including African American, Latine, Asian, Jewish and Arab students, and all other groups. If Ms. Dawson leaves the University of Michigan, hundreds of students will be devastated and negatively impacted.”