A job posting from the University of Oklahoma Foundation shows that the foundation is requiring potential fundraisers to demonstrate “understanding” of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) beliefs.

In a job posting for the position of senior director of development for the Gallogly College of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, the foundation listed several “required” qualifications, including that applicants must demonstrate an “understanding of the University of Oklahoma’s values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

College DEI programs have been publicly cited, repeatedly, as a cause of growing anti-Semitism and other forms of racism and discrimination on college campuses.

The senior director of development will manage a portfolio of major gift donors (those contributing $25,000 or more to OU) to raise additional funds for the university.

The fact that the fundraising position is at the University of Oklahoma Foundation rather than the university itself may allow officials to sidestep legal restrictions on DEI expenditures and mandates at Oklahoma colleges and universities.

In December 2023, Gov. Kevin Stitt issued an executive order seeking to downsize or eliminate DEI offices and bureaucracy at Oklahoma colleges and to prevent state colleges from engaging in illegal discrimination.

Under the order, state agencies and institutions for higher education cannot utilize state funds, property, or resources to mandate that any person participate in, listen to, or receive any education, training, activities, procedures, or programming that supports granting preference based on a person’s particular race, color, sex, ethnicity, or national origin.

The order also barred colleges from mandating that any person certify or declare agreement with any specific political, philosophical, religious, or other ideological viewpoint, and barred state colleges from requiring that job applicants provide a DEI statement to receive preferential consideration.

At that time, OU President Joseph Harroz, Jr., criticized Stitt’s order in an email sent to supporters.

“For many of us, this news evokes deep concern and uncertainty about the future, and in many ways feels like a step backward,” Harroz wrote.

In 2025, legislators incorporated most provisions of Stitt’s DEI executive order into state law.

That legislation, Senate Bill 796, by state Sen. Adam Pugh and state Rep. Denise Crosswhite Hader, states that no Oklahoma college or university “shall utilize state funds, property, or resources to grant or support diversity, equity, and inclusion positions, departments, activities, procedures, or programs.” The law also prohibits state colleges from mandating training based on DEI or requiring employees to declare agreement with any particular political, philosophical, or ideological viewpoint.

SB 796 also prohibits state colleges and universities from requiring job applicants to submit DEI statements as a condition of employment.

OU’s DEI efforts have drawn both scrutiny and criticism in recent years.

In 2021, the University of Oklahoma mandated that incoming students and staff take DEI training that informed students the phrase “Boomer Sooner” is steeped in racism and can represent a form of oppression, that OU remains a place of discrimination where students may literally fear for their lives, that support for racial equality is wrongheaded and instead different treatment should be granted to different groups based on race and other characteristics. The training also explicitly told OU staff to embrace “political correctness” in their communications.

OU stopped mandating the training after passage of a state law made it illegal for Oklahoma colleges to require students “to engage in any form of mandatory gender or sexual diversity training or counseling” and banned any “orientation or requirement that presents any form of race or sex stereotyping or a bias on the basis of race or sex.”

In 2023, Oklahoma’s public colleges reported spending at least $83.4 million on DEI programs and personnel over the prior decade. Those expenditures included funding for drag-queen performances at OU.

[For more stories about higher education in Oklahoma, visit AimHigherOK.com.]