What gargantuan investments, tbh? I've been mostly hearing of volunteer-run DEI committees and the occasional checkmark or platitude on a forum somewhere. [Not trying to be snarky, genuinely wanting to know. I haven't heard of e.g. a trans student being paid way more money for attending grad school than a non-trans one.]

If I do a DDG search for "dei chairman university", I get listings for :

U. of Denver U. Michigan U. Washington James Madison U. Texas Tech Emory School of Medicine U. Virginia School of Engineering Miami University Washington State U. UCLA

Now, if your argument is "All this is just empty platitudes" you might be right, but it's your turn to do the research.

I am sure Stanford spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their recently release DEI breakthrough: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34039816

Well, it’s unfortunately true. White women have by far been the greatest beneficiaries of DEI efforts. Of the POC that have benefited from these programs, many come from wealthy families. Functionally, DEI programs mostly exist to launder the reputation of universities.

Cynical, but probably true.