Washington: For President Donald Trump’s allies, his crackdown on “illegal and immoral discrimination” in equal opportunities programs reflects a shifting U.S. electorate that has grown tired of ineffective and performative political correctness.
However, for Trump’s critics, it is a direct assault on civil rights that will halt efforts to create a fairer country, dismantling decades of affirmative action which they argue led to a more skilled, representative workforce.
Trump repeatedly previewed his plan to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) during his election campaign, but the rapid pace of changes—and their broad reach—has caught many by surprise.
Since his return to office, administration officials have been scrambling to implement Trump’s war on DEI across the federal bureaucracy, dismantling training programs, canceling grants, and sidelining hundreds of employees.
“Woke is not inevitable. It is not invincible. It is not indestructible. The counter-revolution is coming,” anti-DEI crusader Christopher Rufo wrote on X, marking Trump’s first week in office.
The evil of DEI is a central belief in Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement, but the Republican leader is betting on growing skepticism in the broader public over cultural liberalism in government, education, and business.
The enmity is based on the suspicion that people employed through DEI do not deserve their success and are depriving more deserving candidates who are denied opportunities because they are not part of a minority.
Virtue-signaling DEI came to the forefront during mass protests against the 2020 murder of African American George Floyd by a white police officer, as institutions scrambled to show they were on-message regarding racism.
Previously seen as a mark of professionalism, DEI has since become a boogeyman, held up as an example of counterproductive virtue-signaling.
Rufo celebrated after websites and social media accounts related to diversity went dark last week, while officials directed agencies to shut down their DEI offices and place staffers on paid leave ahead of layoffs.
Federal employees have also been ordered to report colleagues who conceal DEI efforts with “coded or imprecise language,” and the State Department is halting passport applications that use “X” as a gender marker instead of “M” or “F.”
Among the casualties of the new regime was Coast Guard Commandant Linda Fagan, the first woman to lead a U.S. military branch, who was fired after being accused of focusing too much on DEI.
In the corporate world, top brands from Target and Walmart to Meta, Harley-Davidson, and Jack Daniel’s have taken similar actions since Trump’s election as they face pressure from conservatives to roll back DEI initiatives.
‘Old-boys’ network’ In education, Trump has instructed federal officials to investigate DEI programs at schools with endowments over $1 billion—including Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and dozens of other institutions.
Last month, the University of Michigan—facing accusations of wasting a quarter of a billion dollars on failed DEI initiatives—announced it would no longer require diversity statements as part of hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions.
Although DEI hate didn’t begin with Trump, he made it a popular applause line during his campaign, vowing to purge the military of generals he accused of focusing too much on social justice and planning a crackdown on transgender recruitment.
Liberals argue that diversity and inclusion policies—such as a 2022 FBI recruitment drive at historically Black universities—help ensure the best and brightest rise to the top when they might otherwise be denied opportunities.
“DEI programs, of course, do not do what Trump imagines,” Elie Mystal, bestselling author of “Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution,” wrote in a commentary for the progressive magazine The Nation.
“If anything, the country is beset by mediocre white men who got their positions through an old-boys’ network of family, friends, connections, and frat buddies who now gum up and dumb down the system at every level.”
