University of Wisconsin Settles Discrimination Lawsuit Filed by Form Head of DEI Office

The University of Wisconsin Eau Claire settled a lawsuit last week with the former head of its DEI office. The woman in question, Rochelle Hoffman, filed the lawsuit alleging she was demoted from her position because she is white.

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents is paying $265,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a woman who says she was demoted from a diversity, equity and inclusion leadership position because she is white.

The settlement caps off a three-year legal battle between former University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire employee Rochelle Hoffman and administrators with the campus and university system. Hoffman claims she faced racial hostility from student groups and faculty members in Eau Claire after she was appointed interim director of the university’s office of Multicultural Student Services.

Under the terms of agreement, both Hoffman and regents stipulate that the $265,000 payment “is not to be construed as an admission of liability” or wrongdoing and is intended only to “avoid litigation and buy their peace.”

So, officially, the school has admitted no wrong but there is a lot more to this story. Back in 2022 Hoffman was appointed to lead the campus DEI office by the head of that office, Olga Diaz.

Vice Chancellor Diaz named Hoffman Interim Director of MSS and,later, Assistant Director of MSS because she was the coordinator with the longestrecord of service, highest retention rate for diverse students served and thehighest-ranking person in the merged departments, having previously served asAssistant Director of BB.

Despite Hoffman’s qualifications, students thought it was problematic to have a white woman running the Office of Multicultural Student Services (MSS).

During the first Open House forum in February 2022 a student asked, “You hired a white woman as the Interim Director?” Another student asked, “Do you personally feel white staff can do as effective a job as a person of color, within a space for people of color?”

Other students said, “We don’t want white people in the MSS office”, “Our heritage months are not for the campus, they are for us only” and, “Will you hire white people?”

The most surprising thing about this lawsuit is that Hoffman was surprised. Anyone involved in campus DEI ought to know that the whole point of campus DEI is to push identity politics which includes the idea that race trump qualifications. That’s exactly how the students at UW saw things. Some of the faulty felt the same way.

Coworkers and staff also opposed Hoffman’s appointment to Interim and then Assistant Director because she was white. Maggie Jensen, a former OMA coordinator told Hoffman her “identity as white” was a significant problem for Jensen and that as the longest serving staff of color Jensen should have been asked to be the Interim Director.

And ultimately the university itself did nothing to help Hoffman keep her job. In July 2022, Hoffman filed a complaint with the Office of Affirmative Action. Subsequently, a class which Hoffman was scheduled to teach (for the fourth year) was pulled away from her and handed over to Maggie Jensen, who had never taught the class. Hoffman was effectively demoted and has since left the school. 

Olga Diaz, the person who selected Hoffman for the position also filed a lawsuit against the school. Diaz claimed she was fired after expressing support for Hoffman’s decision to file an affirmative action complaint.

My own take on this is that no one should act surprised that DEI led people to support the promotion of skin color over qualifications. What did they think this was about? This really does seem to be a case of the white woman who thought the alligator wouldn’t eat her if she was on board with its agenda. But it clearly didn’t work out that way.

On the other hand, what the school appears to have done here is illegal. It’s a shame this settlement doesn’t require them to admit any wrongdoing. Hopefully someone in Trump Department of Education is watching this and adding UW to a list of schools who need to be pushed to get rid of all of their DEI employees. Last month UW Madison announced it was closing its DEI office but it sounds like few, if any, employees were getting fired.

The controversial Division of Diversity, Equity and Education Achievement at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is closing, Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin announced this week. 

But a majority of the programs and staff members in the division will be moved to other departments at the university.

Reshuffling and rebranding shouldn’t cut it.