JD Vance’s Mother-In-Law Led the DEI Charge He Reviles

While Vice President JD Vance rips through DEI initiatives across the nation, his mother-in-law, Lakshmi Chilukuri, is a proud pioneer of diversity, equity, and inclusion at her own job.

The provost of the University of California San Diego’s Sixth College and a teaching professor in its Department of Microbiology, CBS News reports that Chilukuri’s seasoned career in the university has seen her help create a pilot course on race, ethnicity, and gender in biology and medicine and serve on the university’s biological sciences diversity committee.

In a 2018 announcement appointing Chilukuri as provost, UC San Diego (UCSD) Chancellor Pradeep K. Khosla described the vice president’s mother-in-law as a “creative and dynamic educator who has a “demonstrated record of commitment to undergraduate education, equity, and diversity.”

“She is one of the founding members of the pilot course in Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in Biology and Medicine, exploring the practice and philosophy of science from a multicultural perspective, the historical use and misuse of science in biomedical research and social policies, and issues of race and medicine in a post-genomic age,” the announcement continued. “She is a member of the Division of Biological Sciences Diversity Committee and served as a Marshall Mentor for three years (2008- 2010).”

According to CBS, an additional 2019 article on the university’s website details that the pilot course, BILD 60: Exploring Issues of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Relation to Human Biology, was developed because Chilukuri and her fellow members of the school’s diversity committee “recognized the need for a course that looked at DEI issues through a scientific lens.”

In a provost welcome letter published to UCSD’s Sixth College “About” page, Chilukuri also digs deep on the importance of DEI in her own words, beckoning students to “be part of the conversation and part of the solution.”

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