‘I guess my passion is dismantling DEI,’ sophomore Alex Shieh tells Free Beacon
When Brown University sophomore Alex Shieh published an online database spotlighting administrative bloat at the Ivy League school, he became the subject of both a university investigation and a hacking effort that shut his site down. Now, he’s barreling ahead, having launched a revamped version of the site that corresponds with Brown’s recent loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds.
Shieh’s “Bloat@Brown” database went back online Friday morning, hours after the Trump administration froze $510 million in federal funding to Brown over its DEI policies and response to campus anti-Semitism. A new header reads, “Meet the DEI bureaucrats who lost Brown University $510 million in federal funds.” Visitors can scroll through to learn the names of “49 Brown University employees” flagged for “potentially holding illegal DEI roles.” Titles include “Associate Dean for Undergraduate Research and Inclusive Science” and “Associate Vice President for Institutional Equity, Accessibility and Compliance.”
Shieh has become the campus face of the funding freeze thanks to the database, which he launched two weeks ago as a way of exposing redundant, “bullshit,” and “legally questionable” administrative jobs at Brown. The school employs some 3,800 non-faculty staffers—more than one for every two undergraduate students—and reported a $42 million budget deficit in 2024. Brown expects that figure to grow to $46 million this year.
Shieh thought he was doing Brown a favor, then, when he published the database, which included a warning that the Trump administration had threatened to cut the school’s federal funding over the “continued use of DEI programs that potentially violate the Civil Rights Act.” A student journalist with the Brown Spectator—a conservative campus paper that Shieh is resurrecting after an 11-year hiatus—Shieh paired the website launch with a DOGE-style email he sent to all 3,805 non-faculty employees asking them what they do.
“We want to hear your side of the story to paint a fuller picture of your role at Brown,” he wrote. “Could you please (1) explain your role, (2) describe what tasks you performed in the past week, (3) explain how Brown students would be impacted if your position was eliminated, and (4) comment on your current rating in our database and any areas of concern raised by the algorithm?”
Recipients did not take to the questions well.
One of them, “event specialist” José Mendoza, responded, “Fuck off.” Another, Associate Dean and Associate Director of Student Conduct Kirsten Wolfe, initially did not respond to Shieh—then sent him a letter two days later informing him he was under investigation for causing “emotional distress for several University employees.” Someone using a Brown email domain hacked Shieh’s database, shutting it down. Someone else—Shieh told the Washington Free Beacon he suspects it was a Brown administrator with access to private student data—leaked his Social Security number.
Wolfe specifically accused Shieh of accessing a “proprietary University data system” that hosts “confidential” information to create his database. Brown maintains a public staff directory. She also accused him of misrepresenting himself “as a reporter for the Brown Spectator, a student organization that is not currently recognized by the University.” Brown’s flagship campus paper, the Brown Daily Herald, is not a recognized student group, and Shieh also works as a contributing writer to the Boston Globe.
So Shieh stonewalled Wolfe. In turn, she threatened to charge him with “failure to comply.” Shieh took the investigation public and quickly went viral, attracting the attention of DOGE leader Elon Musk and billionaire Ivy League critic Bill Ackman.
The ordeal provides a clear example of what critics have called the Ivy League’s “institutional rot”—and helps explain why Brown became the fourth Ivy League school to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funds under the Trump administration. Shieh is synonymous with the funding cuts on campus: On the anonymous messaging app Sidechat, one Brown student responded to the news by posting, “Everyone please either verbally or physically assault bloat@brown kid if you see him around campus.”
Shieh, a Massachusetts native who attended the prestigious Phillips Academy and launched its first-ever student-run polling firm, is taking it all in stride. He took a victory lap after news of the funding freeze broke, posting, “I warned Brown University to eliminate their DEI programs by emailing every administrator with AI and detecting DEI roles. Instead of heeding my advice, they investigated me and will lose $510 million.”
Still, Shieh told the Free Beacon he rejects the “perception among students” that he “caused Brown to get defunded.” He’s nonetheless quick to point out that he “saw it coming”—and he has no plans to stand down in his spat with Brown administrators.
In the coming weeks, Shieh said he expects to complete his relaunch of the Brown Spectator and publish new articles both online and in print. He’s also keen on expanding “Bloat@Brown” to other Ivy League schools, a project he says “a bunch of people” have offered to support. His revamped website includes beefed-up security features meant to protect from future hacking attempts.
“I guess my passion is dismantling DEI,” he told the Free Beacon, “because that really hurts Asian students.”
For now, Shieh expects to continue pursuing that passion at Brown. He said school administrators haven’t updated him on his investigation since the initial flurry of threats. Should the investigation against him take a turn for the worse, however, he’s confident he’ll land on his feet.
“I don’t know, Brown is a very overwhelmingly liberal place, people are very unreasonable sometimes,” he said. “But I mean, I’m at Brown, I’m here for now, so hopefully they don’t kick me out, but Elon Musk has been posting about me, so maybe if they do kick me out, he’ll give me a job at DOGE.”
