Because these deans of "diversity" get paid a lot of money to bikeshed about useless issues while not actually having any impact on the school. It's run exclusively as a PR stunt to satisfy the whiners in the school. It's one example of the many cases of unneeded, useless headcount in universities that's contributing to bloat. I can't name a single time where anyone with the word diversity in their title at my former college did anything concrete.
> US universities do not run as democracies. The appointed deans and the president run the show.
That's not really the case especially in public universities. If you want to make a change that might step on a lot of toes you need to get buy in from people. They aren't explicit democracies where everyone votes, but nonetheless you need to secure acceptance from people to get things done.
To give you an example of the useless bureaucracy, I once had to submit a reimbursement for some research expenses and was bounced around for several months between different forms and different people. Any 1 part of the reimbursement that didn't match the forms exactly meant the entire thing would be rejected. This was to access grant money that wasn't even the university's, it was the lab's. In corporate settings people don't give a shit and approve it as long as it looks legitimate.
> US universities do not run as democracies. The appointed deans and the president run the show.
That's not really the case especially in public universities. If you want to make a change that might step on a lot of toes you need to get buy in from people. They aren't explicit democracies where everyone votes, but nonetheless you need to secure acceptance from people to get things done.
To give you an example of the useless bureaucracy, I once had to submit a reimbursement for some research expenses and was bounced around for several months between different forms and different people. Any 1 part of the reimbursement that didn't match the forms exactly meant the entire thing would be rejected. This was to access grant money that wasn't even the university's, it was the lab's. In corporate settings people don't give a shit and approve it as long as it looks legitimate.