HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA EDITION: UA hires two diversity officials instead of one.

The University of Arizona has doubled down on diversity by hiring two top people instead of one and paying each of them more than the previous person earned.

Faced with choosing between two finalists for the recently advertised post of chief diversity officer, UA officials decided to hire both, creating a new, unadvertised position in the process.

Jesús Treviño will be paid $214,000 a year as the UA’s new senior diversity officer, and Rebecca Tsosie will be paid $215,000 as a law professor and special adviser to the provost on diversity.

Previously, the UA paid $118,000 to an assistant vice president in charge of diversity. But that person’s duties were more limited in scope than those of the two new hires, UA officials said.

The median salary for a chief diversity officer at a U.S. research university is less than $165,000, according to a March salary survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, the national association for human-resource professionals in higher education.

The hirings come on the heels of a publicly announced ramp-up of UA’s efforts to combat racism and other forms of discrimination on campus. It was driven in part by recent feedback from minority students who recounted racial epithets and other problems they faced while pursuing a UA education.

If I were an Arizona taxpayer, I would not be amused.