Syracuse University in New York plans to open a $5 million Social Justice Center within its School of Education on Friday, thanks to an alumni donation.

As Campus Reform's Abigail Marone reports, The Lender Center for Social Justice “aspires to foster proactive, innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to issues related to justice, equity & inclusion," according to a university news release, and will provide symposia, student and faculty fellowships, and research aid.

The social justice center will be directed by faculty members Marcelle Haddix and Kendall Phillips. Haddix, Syracuse’s School of Education chair of Reading and Language Arts and dean’s associate professor, is an active participant in social justice movements like Black Lives Matter.

She has participated in numerous social justice panels, including a Black Lives Matter in Academia webinar, and delivered the keynote address at a Social Justice Teach-In where Black Lives Matter and Planned Parenthood also made presentations.

Phillips, the other faculty co-director and communication and rhetorical studies professor, recently taught a course on President Trump’s “celebrity presidency”. He has told the HuffPo that unlike former president Ronald Reagan, President Donald Trump does not even pretend to play a presidential role.

“We envision the Center serving as a place for innovative and proactive approaches to social problems and concerns,” Phillips told Campus Reform.

“We want to inspire new ways of thinking about old problems and to create a place where people can rise above old ways of thinking, partisan politics, and disciplinary blinders and, instead, work across different points of view to develop new approaches.”

“I suppose some folks might be concerned that we will be promoting a single point of view or serving a particular set of political values,” he continued, “but, that is exactly the opposite of what we want to accomplish. Real innovation will require real dialogue across multiple points of view. We hope to create just such a dialogue.”

The Lender Center for Social Justice’s launch will feature opening remarks, a keynote address, and panel discussions from multiple speakers. Although some speakers have backgrounds in reproductive justice and the Black Lives Matter movement, no speakers have a background in conservative thought or activism.

“Syracuse is actually a pretty politically diverse campus. We have a strong chapter of College Republicans as well as College Democrats,” Phillips told Campus Reform, when asked about how the center plans to engage students and speakers from both sides of the aisle. “And, both our Congressional Representative (John Katko) and State Senator (John DeFrancisco) are Republicans.”

He did not detail any specific plans the center has to work with students and speakers from different perspectives besides mentioning that the Center’s objective was to “push us beyond partisanship.”

Kevin Kumashiro, a former education dean at the University of San Francisco and founder of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education, will deliver the launch’s keynote address. The university describes him as a “recognized expert in educational equity and social justice.”

Kumashiro has published books and articles including Queering Elementary Education and Against Common Sense: Teaching and Learning Toward Social Justice.

In Against Common Sense, Kumashiro encourages students and teachers to engage in “anti-oppressive education” and to “examine the underlying stories of the curriculum and the ways the stories can both reinforce and challenge oppression.”

The book also teaches that “queer activism can suggest ways of thinking that go beyond common sense” and that “queer teaching always works through crisis.”

Syracuse University, The Lender Center, and Marcelle Haddix did not respond to request for comments in time for publication.

However, there is just one problem as Syracuse blows millions, Campus Reform's Masopn McKie reports that a new Baylor University study reveals that there is "no significant statistical evidence" that schools with chief diversity officers have more diverse faculties.

“We are unable to find significant statistical evidence that preexisting growth in diversity for underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups is affected by the hiring of an executive level diversity officer for new tenure and non-tenure track hires, faculty hired with tenure, or for university administrator hires,” the study, which was published last month, states. The four authors of the study - Steven Bradley, James Garven, Wilson Law, and James West - surveyed 462 U.S. universities with enrollments of at least 4,000 students.

“With faculties less diverse than their student bodies, universities have sought programs and policies designed to better increase faculty diversity. Advocates for greater diversity have argued that a higher-profile executive-level Chief Diversity Officer, preferably one who reports directly to the university president, can more effectively promote and encourage diversity at the highest level of university governance compared with lower level diversity-focused offices and organizations such as multicultural and diversity centers,” the study states.

The study added that in 2016, “more than two-thirds of the major U.S. universities we study had a CDO in place.”

However, it continues, “it is not immediately clear how much influence an executive level CDO can exert upon faculty hiring decisions made by individual departments.” “Importantly, we are unable to find evidence that preexisting patterns in diversity hiring are altered by the hiring of an executive level diversity officer at the faculty or administration hiring level,” it adds.

When asked by the Chronicle of Higher Education about whether universities have chief diversity officers for optics, West responded, “The figures in the paper tell an interesting story, but I’m not sure what is it.”

“For instance,” West said, “the proportion of underrepresented faculty hired is actually higher for institutions that have no CDO,” a finding West later described as “not very nice.” “Does that mean that CDOs don't work, or is this the mathematical compositional effect? The whole lesson of this is complicated,” West added.

But, West also acknowledged how CDOs could affect faculty diversity as they are generally intended.

“I could see how a diversity officer – if they set a positive tone or a tone that underrepresented-minority faculty members viewed as positive – that could affect attrition,” West told the Chronicle.

In an article published last summer, Campus Reform highlighted how much some chief diversity officers make. The article explained that “on average, each [diversity-related] administrative position, generally identified as some variation of a chancellor, provost, or dean, earns $175,088—though at least 15 such officials earn well over $200,000 annually, including two administrators who earn more than $300,000 annually.”

As Campus Reform also reported last year, a community college in New York was in search of a chief diversity officer, ready to pay the right person a 6-figure salary.

“The new recruit, who will earn a starting salary of at least $102,296 and a generous benefits package that includes health coverage and a pension plan, must hold at least a Master's degree and seven years of related experience in academia,” the job post stated.

The article states, “In total, state flagship universities spend a combined $7,528,821 annually on such administrators, enough to pay the average tuition (based on the combined average for out-of-state tuition) of 257 students.”