Published at The National News Desk

WASHINGTON (TNND) — Open the Books is continuing to investigate American universities using diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI.

Rachel O'Brien, who is the deputy public policy editor for Open The Books.com, joined The National News Desk’s Angela Brown Friday morning to discuss this and more.

Since taking office in January, President Donald Trump banned public universities from using federal funds to support DEI programs.

Open the Books is looking into DEI policies at Rutgers University, which is in New Jersey.

So far, we’ve only seen Rutgers cancel one conference,” O'Brien told Brown. “This was a conference that was funded by the Department of Labor So, as far as we know all DEI staff and programing at Rutgers is intact.”

A deep dive into the payroll at Rutgers, said O’Brien, shows the University spent $10 million on 136 employees who were in DEI roles in 2024.

That’s the equivalent of in-state tuition and fees for over 500 students,” O’Brien said, also noting the highest paid DEI employee makes $342,000 per year.