‘If We Stay Silent, They’ll Leave Us Alone:’ Still No Comment From Texas McCombs Or Consortium On Historic Split

McCombs School of Business at University of Texas-Austin ended its 40-year partnership with The Consortium for Graduate Study of Management, effective July 1. (Courtesy photo)

Editor’s note: As this story was being completed, Poets&Quants discovered that the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business is no longer listed on the member school page of The Consortium of Graduate Study in Management. Read our story about Darden’s suspension of its membership in both The Consortium and the Forté Foundation here.

Three weeks ago, effective July 1, University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business ended its four-decade partnership with The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management amid stark backlash to DEI policies at both the state and federal level. So far, there appears to be no public acknowledgement of the split.

While emails to Consortium members have been posted on social media or forwarded to Poets&Quants, neither The Consoritium, nor UT Austin, nor McCombs has made public statements about the breakup on their website or social channels, as far as P&Q can find. Several requests for comment made to the three organizations have not been answered.

While the silence may be disheartening, it is understandable in the current anti-DEI climate, says Ella L.J. Bell Smith, a professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business.

“I think we’re in a historical period where it’s not even just backlash, it is the dismantling of any type of program that supports, nurtures, helps, or advances students and people of color. Under this particular presidency, not only is it not a priority, but there’s almost an erasing of the progress that has been made,” Smith tells P&Q. (See: Amid DEI Backlash, UT Austin’s McCombs Quietly Ends 40-Year Partnership With The Consortium)

“I think it’s based on the idea that if we stay silent, they’ll leave us alone. I think it’s based on what we’re seeing in schools and universities like Harvard, Columbia, University of Virginia,” she says.

A SILENCE HEARD LOUD AND CLEAR

Poets&Quants was the first to report McCombs’ exit after a prospective applicant forwarded us a Consortium email. The message attributed the withdrawal to “recent changes in state and federal policies regarding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs.”

“This separation is not a reflection of the value or quality of our work together. UT Austin has made clear that this decision is purely driven by regulatory compliance requirements, not by any dissatisfaction with our partnership or mission,” the email says.

The Consortium was founded in 1966 at Washington University in St. Louis when management professor Sterling Schoen realized that no Fortune 500 company of the time had an African American in its management. He and others created a network of universities who pledged to help Black students earn MBAs and enter corporate leadership pipelines.

As of July 21, 2025, The Consortium has 23 member business schools listed on its membership page, nearly all in the top tier. It also has more than 75 corporate partners in its network and has expanded its mission to create pathways for Hispanic Americans and Native Americans alongside Black students. (Editor’s note: UVA Darden was listed as a member school as of July 3, but is not currently listed. We have reached out to confirm whether or not it is still a member school.)

P&Q reached out to all 23 member schools over the last couple of weeks. Three confirmed they were still members, but didn’t have further comment: Stanford Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan Ross School of Business, and University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School. Most did not respond.

The Consortium has not released any statement about the McCombs exit on its website or LinkedIn account since its original email, forwarded to P&Q on July 3. (It has announced that it named Eric Allen its new CEO and Executive Director, effective August 1. Allen most recently served as General Manager of Magoosh’s Admit.me Access and was a Wharton MBA, Class of 2004.)

Last week, a former Consortium fellow posted on LinkedIn a screenshot of a follow-up email that appears to have been sent to applicants.

“As a result of this change, McCombs will no longer participate in Consortium recruitment activities or accept applications through our common application. This means that incoming MBA students for Fall 2026 (Class of 2028 and beyond) at McCombs will no longer be eligible to become Consortium fellows,” the more recent statement reads.

“We understand this news may be unexpected, especially given the significant 40-year partnership between The University of Texas at Austin and The Consortium, and its vital role in fostering community and expanding opportunities. Please know that even as our formal partnership with McCombs concludes, our unwavering commitment to you—and to our core values of access, opportunity, and belonging—remains as strong as ever.”

Poets&Quants also messaged several current and past Consortium fellows and members through LinkedIn.

“I’m disappointed in UT’s decision. I feel that it will set some sort of precedent going forward,” Iyayi Agbontaen, an MBA candidate and Class of 2027 Consortium Fellow at UCLA Anderson School of Management, writes to P&Q.

“It’s hard to believe that the governing bodies of the UT system have [no] (sic) interest in upholding commitments to furthering DEI for all.”

Smith, author of “Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Search for Identity,” suspects the institutional silence on the split comes down to fear.

“This is not the time when you want to raise your hand and call attention to yourself. You don’t know what kind of retribution is going to come at you. You don’t know what the consequences of using your voice will be, and how extreme it will be,” she tells P&Q.

“I think people are nervous and don’t want to have to go through the politicalness of this moment.”

END OF A 40-YEAR PARTNERSHIP

UT McCombs joined the Consortium in 1984, and has hosted hundreds of Consortium fellows since. Fellows receive full-tuition scholarships, professional development, a powerful network of peers and alumni, and other resources to member MBA programs. McCombs’ full-time MBA Class of 2025 included 37 students who were members of the Consortium, about 15% of the 241 students in the class.

Smith is a big supporter of the organization and its work.

“It’s an unbelievable program in terms of getting students of color into business school programs, particularly the top tier,” says Smith, winner of The Consortium’s 2021 Earl Hill Jr. Faculty Achievement and Diversity Leadership Award. She is also founder and faculty director of the Tuck Initiative on Workplace Inclusion and a world-renowned expert in the management of race, gender, and class in the workplace.

“Being at Dartmouth, a lot of students of color don’t see New Hampshire as the ideal place. It can be isolating, they don’t necessarily see themselves as fitting. They’re concerned about their social life and being connected to communities of color.

“But once we get them, they have a phenomenal experience, I think. But we have to work extra hard. So the Consortium is very important in helping us recruit students of color.”

ONCE GONE, OPPORTUNITIES DON’T MAGICALLY SNAP BACK

Just six months into his second term, Trump has upended higher education nationwide. He has threatened to cut federal funding to universities that do not dismantle DEI programs, slashed billions in scientific research funding (much of which supports university labs), and gutted the U.S. Department of Education. That move is expected to impact Title I grants, Pell grants, civil rights enforcement, and support for low-income, disabled, and first-generation students.

His administration has filed lawsuits against elite schools like Columbia and Harvard and is still fighting to revoke Harvard’s certification to host international students. University of Virginia President James Ryan stepped down under pressure from a Department of Justice investigation into the university’s DEI policies. (UVA’s Darden School of Business’ partnership with The Consortium was mentioned in the investigation.)

Smith says people shouldn’t be surprised by Trump’s attacks. It was foretold in Project 2025, and conservatives have been working on this very result since the Hudson Institute’s published its Workforce 2000 report way back in 1987. While that report forecast demographic changes in the American workforce and helped spur corporate investment in DEI programs, “It also ushered in a period of, ‘Okay, we need to nip this in the bud,’” Smith says.

While Smith understands why people and organizations seem to be staying silent in this particular moment, she wonders what universities are teaching their students – many of whom will become leaders themselves.

“Are we teaching them to be silent? Have we forgotten what has happened in the world through silence and brutality? Have we forgotten what happens when groups are erased?” she asks.

“I will be 76 next month. Everything that got me from where I was – as a kid in the South Bronx with parents who did not have higher education – is quite frankly being erased.”

Smith earned her PhD from Case Western Reserve University in 1987, and was one of the few Black women at the time to earn that degree. Programs like The Consortium, The Forte Foundation, The Tenure Project, and others that were designed to elevate people like her, are precisely the programs that the Trump administration is now targeting.

“That scares me. It angers me. And I’m worried,” she says.

“It’s not as if a new administration comes in, you say ‘abracadabra,’ and everything comes back. It took decades to build programs that allow groups to have these kinds of opportunities. It took decades and decades, and years and years. You can’t snap your fingers, and it’s all back in place.”

WILL OTHER SCHOOLS FOLLOW?

A couple of big questions remain: Will other schools be forced to follow McCombs lead? If too many are pressured out of The Consortium, what happens to its ability to fulfill its mission?

Such questions may be answered school by school and state by state.

Texas’ legislature, for example, passed Senate Bill 17 in January 2024, a year before the start of Trump’s second term. In response to the anti-DEI law, UT–Austin eliminated roughly 60 DEI-related positions and shut down its Division of Campus & Community Engagement. So far, Smith hasn’t seen the same kind of pressures in New Hampshire – Tuck headquarters.

“This could be state by state. which is how we seem to be dividing our country right now,” Smith says. “These attacks also seem to be mostly on the elite institutions.”

She would like to see more collective action in response to the administration’s attacks on universities, DEI, and opportunities for people of color. She’s seen some movement, but says there must be a coordinated, group-level response. Not just isolated statements and pushback, a strategy.

“I don’t think one institution, one negotiation, one president leaving, will make a difference, to be honest with you … I’m hoping that universities will move more toward a collective response, besides just letter writing, besides individual folks going to meet with this particular administration,” she says.

“Speaking out is crucial, but you also have to have a strategy. What’s your game plan? What’s the conversation?”

And the consequences of not having a strategy? Of staying quiet, of ducking notice so you can make it to the next fight?

“There’s a part of me that wonders if this is a way to make sure we never, ever again have a Barack Obama, a Michelle Obama. The kinds of success we’ve had with people of color reaching the top echelons,” Smith tells P&Q.

“Is all this just a way to make sure that doesn’t happen again?”

DON’T MISS: AMID DEI BACKLASH, UT AUSTIN’S MCCOMBS QUIETLY ENDS 40-YEAR PARTNERSHIP WITH THE CONSORTIUM and HOW THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IS STRONG-ARMING HIGHER EDUCATION

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