US President Donald Trump wasted no time trying to destroy efforts to end racial discrimination in the United States. In his early flurry of executive orders, three targeted diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
One order directs federal agencies to end all DEI activities. This order also directs agencies to withdraw plans written under the Biden-Harris administration to end systemic racism and other inequities. A second eliminates DEI programs in the military, even though the Department of Defense has acknowledged that some active duty and former military members were affiliated with white supremacist groups.
A third order calls DEI programs discriminatory and claims they should be ended in the private sector, too. The order rescinds executive orders dating back to 1965 that sought to address racism and promote equal opportunities for jobs. Trump plans to “deter” such programs by launching investigations into corporations, nonprofits, and professional associations. Companies have already begun announcing plans to end their DEI programs.
Students will also be harmed. Public schools and colleges risk losing federal funding for promoting equal opportunities for racial and ethnic minorities, women and girls, and LGBT youth. Last Friday, the Department of Education announced that its Office of Civil Rights will stop considering complaints related to book bans in several public school systems and rescinded guidance indicating that states risk violating students’ rights by adopting such measures. Students across the country had looked to this office for help when schools banned literature that featured or was written by Black and LGBT people.
This anti-DEI regime relies on twisted logic. Institutions began creating DEI and affirmative action programs after the fall of racial segregation in the US. The 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, outlawing school segregation, and 1964’s Civil Rights Act, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, are bedrock principles: they created protections that people in the US have relied upon for over 60 years.
Trump’s executive orders turn these protections against themselves by claiming DEI is itself racist, usually against white people. In other words, the mechanisms the US built to protect vulnerable people are being labeled discriminatory.
Since ratifying the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1994, the United States is obligated to work to address the remnants of historical racism and prevent future discrimination. But President Trump’s first steps in office are moving the US in the opposite direction.
When you hear about efforts to end DEI, know that it's more than some organizations ending a few programs. The dams built to hold off discrimination are under attack. We must not let them fall.
