First, the private sector, and now, the public sector. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is on its way out.
Yesterday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to remove DEI offices, staff, and programming across the federal workforce. Federal contracts and contractors will no longer be under or pressured into DEI requirements and programs. Instead, merit will be elevated.
Furthermore, DEI staff were just given notice that it was time to pack their boxes.
These are major steps toward removing this divisive and discriminatory agenda in the federal government. From hiring to contracting, former President Joe Biden made it his day-one priority to force equity across the federal government. President Trump has made it his day-one priority to root it all out.
Wokeness did little to lift up disadvantaged Americans of all kinds but did sow discord in America. President Trump’s EO is a critical step toward restoring equality in the government.
What happened?
On his first full day in office, President Trump signed the Executive Order titled, “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.” It directs the federal agencies charged with managing federal personnel to take a broom to DEI across all agencies and federal contracting:
The Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), assisted by the Attorney General and the Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), shall coordinate the termination of all discriminatory programs, including illegal DEI and “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility” (DEIA) mandates, policies, programs, preferences, and activities in the Federal Government, under whatever name they appear. To carry out this directive, the Director of OPM, with the assistance of the Attorney General as requested, shall review and revise, as appropriate, all existing Federal employment practices, union contracts, and training policies or programs to comply with this order. Federal employment practices, including Federal employee performance reviews, shall reward individual initiative, skills, performance, and hard work and shall not under any circumstances consider DEI or DEIA factors, goals, policies, mandates, or requirements.
At the same time, federal workers with DEI responsibilities were alerted that their time on the job was over.
A memo was issued by OPM instructing agencies to notify DEI staffers “no later than 5:00pm EST on Wednesday” that they were being placed on administrative leave effective immediately as “the agency takes steps to close/end all DEIA initiatives, offices and programs.”
We applauded these efforts by the Trump administration to right the wrongs of DEI:
Over the past four years, diversity, equity, and inclusion programs have become widespread in government and have hurt American businesses, academia, and other organizations. Rather than focusing on merit, too many employers were looking to fill quotas and focusing on people’s race, orientation, and other characteristics that have nothing to do with anyone’s qualifications and expertise for the job.
Trending: DEI’s Demise
DEI is in retreat and wokeness is on the run, as I wrote for Newsmax. It’s time to end the obsession with race and sex.
Corporations have been abandoning DEI staffing and programs en masse. McDonald’s, Facebook, John Deere, and Toyota are just a few examples.
Also, red states are passing legislation to root out DEI staffing and programs from public colleges and universities to restore academic freedom, diversity of thought, and freedom of speech to higher education.
The trend is clear that it’s time to do away with DEI for several reasons:
First, DEI is discriminatory and illegal. The Supreme Court invalidated affirmative action in higher education nearly two years ago. Companies recognize that this decision can just as easily apply to private-sector DEI mandates and programming.
Second, DEI is divisive. Backlashes against antiracism training and hiring quotas have been disruptive and divisive to workforces. DEI has turned groups of people (such as white Americans) into villains for discriminatory actions they never made while victimizing other groups of people (blacks and Hispanics) who have never been wronged.
Third, DEI does not work. If the goal is to give everyone access to opportunity, what evidence can DEI advocates point to that income inequality has improved across the races or genders based on DEI efforts? Certainly, a small class of highly paid DEI staff and consultants can afford swanky apartments and expensive trips, but what about the kids growing up in generational poverty?
Furthermore, not all blacks and Hispanics are poor and in need of help while many whites and Asians are trapped in cycles of poverty and never get a hand up.
What begins in the private sector often spreads to the public sector. However, if Kamala Harris had been elected, we can be assured that she would have doubled down on DEI.
How did we get here?
The death of George Floyd in 2020 triggered a racial reckoning that cleared the way for massive investments in social justice causes and DEI programming.
Yet, for all of the bias training, DEI offices, and consultants, they have few successes to which they can point. Part of why there are not more black and Hispanic workers in certain fields or positions is that we graduate young adults who are undereducated and unprepared for the workforce.
We have a failing public education system. Not enough attention is focused on building up human capital through reskilling, work ethic, and non-college paths for the jobs of today and tomorrow.
Merit is important, and children can compete fairly. However, many students are behind because the standards have been set too low for them. We’re not offering many children educations that help them graduate to be productive citizens, instead they get moved along.
School choice, refocusing education on the basics, raising standards, pushing alternative pathways to the middle class, and workforce development should be prioritized with no care for sex or skin color.
Bottom Line
Removing DEI throughout the federal workforce is a good start. The work cannot end there though. From public colleges to public schools, it’s time to give DEI the boot and return to merit and high achievement.