Dive Brief:

• The University of Oklahoma will hire a new vice president to lead diversity and inclusion efforts on campus, but the move is considered long overdue.
• Inside Higher Ed reports the University of Oklahoma is in the minority of schools in the Big 12 Conference that don’t have a chief diversity officer, and Iowa State University, one of the other three, is in the middle of its own search.
• Black students make up a small and stagnant portion of the university community, which also struggles to recruit diverse faculty and staff members, Inside Higher Ed reports.

Dive Insight:

While the university's president, David Boren, has only just decided a chief diversity officer is necessary on campus, students and other diversity advocates have recognized the need for years, according to Inside Higher Ed. It is often attention-grabbing incidents like the video of the racist SAE fraternity chant that cause mass outrage and major institutional change. The daily injustices and isolation students of color face on majority-white campuses tends to go unnoticed until something major—or a spate of small incidents—shatters the facade.

That’s not just true for racism. Publicized stories of rape or sexual violence, too, force campus communities to come to terms with a culture they might prefer stays in the shadows. While Rolling Stone’s profile of a gang rape at the University of Virginia has been discredited, it and other universities have had to face unpleasant truths surrounding campus climate, especially as the Obama administration has been more forceful about a university’s obligations under Title IX.