The Strange Case of the Late Professor and the Living Bureaucracy

There is, no doubt, a kind of genius at work in the machinery of government—whether it be of a divine or infernal nature is open to debate. In the grand arithmetic of justice, one might reasonably expect that the names appearing on an official ledger of persons under investigation would, at the very least, correspond with the number of heartbeats among the accused.

But such expectations would be misplaced in this age of enlightenment, where the wheels of inquiry neither halt for common sense nor distinguish between the quick and the dead. The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found itself in the curious position of explaining that one of the three professors named in a federal investigation into Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs had been quite dead for more than a year.

Professor Patricia Navarro Velez, who departed this world—felled by a gunman on the very campus she once called home—was nonetheless summoned, posthumously, into the great tribunal of bureaucracy. A spokesperson for UNLV, who must have delivered the statement with the wearied expression of one explaining arithmetic to a brick wall, confirmed that Navarro Velez had been one of three professors named in the Department of Education’s probe.

The other two, while maintaining a more conventional claim to life, were also no longer affiliated with the university. Whether the investigators knew that their quarry had long since gone beyond the reach of subpoenas and cross-examinations was left unsaid.

The investigation, part of President Donald Trump’s broader efforts to excise DEI initiatives from educational institutions and government agencies, targeted the professors for their involvement in the PhD Project—a DEI program dedicated to increasing diversity in business academia. Founded on the belief that the presence of minority faculty members in business schools would create a more inclusive environment, the PhD Project has spent decades recruiting and mentoring individuals from underrepresented backgrounds, guiding them toward doctoral degrees and careers in academia.

Perhaps fearing further scrutiny from an authority untroubled by such trivialities as the passage of time, UNLV affirmed its commitment to equality while declining to comment further on the investigation. Upon being confronted with the spectacle of one of its late members getting held to account, The PhD Project issued a statement reaffirming its mission of mentorship, inclusion, and broadening talent pipelines—though it is unlikely they anticipated having to defend the reputations of those who had long since left earthly matters behind.

Whether the federal investigation will trouble itself with the inconvenience of mortality remains to be seen. One might suggest a séance, should the investigators be so determined to have Navarro Velez answer for her supposed transgressions.

But perhaps, in time, common sense will make a quiet return, slipping past the sentinels of red tape and whispered bureaucracy, reminding all involved that the dead rarely answer letters of inquiry—no matter how determined the government is to correspond.