UMKC ends support for faculty diversity groups under new federal rules

  Employee affinity groups are no longer supported on campus as UMKC complies with new federal guidance. 

“Employees can still form and participate in affinity groups,” said Stacy Downs, UMKC director of strategic communications. “But consistent with federal guidance, affinity groups will not receive university funding or special access to university facilities or resources, including an email address for their affinity group.” 

“I would even say that this was probably going back to 2023,” said Dr. Antonio Byrd, PhD, associate English professor and former member of the Black and Roo Affinity group. “That was when we got the sense that they were going to close our diversity and inclusion office, and that was an open question then as far as what does that mean for the affinity groups.”

  Despite the rumored closing, Byrd and the other members of Black and Roo continued their work, creating spaces for conversations about how to make classes more inclusive for students of color until the final decision to close the office. 

  Another group, The Disability Alliance (TDA), kept working until they were told they could no longer be associated with UMKC.

  “The other groups stopped organizing, [but] the disability alliance, we have a yearly event, which is what kind of kept us going,” said Mathew Edwards, TDA founder and final president. “We hadn’t been talking across the affinity groups like we had in the past. We just kept continuing to work on the planning for our upcoming 2025 event.” 

  Edwards said that despite the dissolution of the group, the administration will allow the event to continue because the title has been changed from the “disability commons” to the “accessibility commons.” 

  This will be the final event the Disability Alliance will hold, although students are forming their own student-led version of the group. 

  Despite the dissolutions, both professors said that, though disappointed, they understand the choice the administration made, citing Justice Department threats to cut funding to students if the groups continued.

“The work still continues. You can disband a group, but folks are still doing the work in the community [and] classrooms to make sure that they’re promoting equity and inclusion as much as possible,” said Byrd.

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