Methodist university denies operating 'hidden' DEI program after undercover video posted of school official

An official at Southern Methodist University was captured on undercover video describing what she called "a lot of maneuvering" surrounding the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, according to footage released by Accuracy in Media that purports to show how DEI initiatives continued under different names.

The video, shared Monday by school-choice activist Corey DeAngelis, alleges SMU renamed its "Office of Diversity and Inclusion" the "Office of Cultural Intelligence" as part of an effort to keep DEI programming less visible.

The SMU staff member, who is identified in the video by Accuracy in Media as Danielle Palomo, coordinator for community engagement, social change and intercultural engagement division of student affairs, said, "As you can probably imagine, we've had to do a lot of maneuvering in order to remain kinda hidden under a lot of things.

But as long as we can keep doing what we're doing even to a smaller capacity, that is what we're going to do.

We're going to do our best." JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LAUNCHES TITLE VI INVESTIGATION INTO DEI PROGRAMS AT ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY In the video, an undercover journalist asks Palomo, "I was hoping to see if y'all had any existing like equity trainings that maybe y'all provide for staff faculty and that would give us an idea of what to go off of." Palomo responded, "So, all of that is held through our Office of Cultural Intelligence.

As you can probably imagine, we've had to do a lot of maneuvering in order to remain kind of hidden under a lot of things.

But my office in particular, we do — we have had trainings like that in the past with students." TRUMP DEI CRACKDOWN ‘MISSES CORE IDEOLOGY' AND MUST TARGET LINGERING DANGER ON CAMPUSES, WATCHDOG WARNS "It's not going to be as severe, hopefully, as some of the other public universities have had to deal with, but I know that the university is definitely finding its like 'P's and Q's' and it's slowly like working to like rename things and maybe do away with things," Palomo said in the video.

While SMU is a private university, it holds 164 active federal grants totaling nearly $30 million from agencies, including the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, and Education, according to a May 2025 report by its independent student newspaper, The Daily Campus.

FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY HIT WITH FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS INVESTIGATION OVER RACE, SEX-BASED SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMS The outlet also reported that SMU’s research and development spending has more than tripled since 2010 , rising from $18.7 million that year to nearly $59.8 million in fiscal year 2023.