Trump's DeWokification of America has Begun

Is DEI on its Deathbed?

I tried to warn them:

Political battles will be fought using political tools, and not exclusively in the pages of peer-reviewed journals or DEI committees.

That quote appears here, in my When Racist Mules Attack paper¹:

I have been warning academia that its full-throated embrace of far left activism in everything from peer reviewed publications, to college bureaucracies and programs (Exhibit A: DEI), to its increasing endorsement of censorship, to its informal culture that presumes progressive worldviews are factually true and morally superior and that anyone who says otherwise is a fool, fascist, fraud, fake, or freak would eventually evoke a political response from among those who do not subscribe to progressive dogmas. For a long time, I held out some hope, not much but some, that academia would listen, not just to me but to other similar voices arguing that the narrow progressive form of diversity embraced by academia was draped in the benevolent rhetoric of equality but implemented in an entirely tribal, sectarian manner.

I hoped enough of my colleagues would wake up and recognize that, DEI, by endorsing racial/ethnic/religious discrimination, by demonizing “oppressor” groups, by undercutting America’s culture of free speech, and by constituting a costly bureaucratic boondoggle that produced little benefit for most people, was sure to alienate very large numbers of Americans.

From The Orwelexicon

DEI and wokeness more generally has alienated many Americans. Swing voters overwhelmingly broke for Trump because of “cultural issues.”

Few academics listened to my pleading that they get their house in order on both scientific and political grounds, and my warnings that, if they didn’t, they would, eventually, evoke a political response to their political sectarianism.

That political response is now beginning. It appears as this Executive Order, Discrimination and Restoring Merit Based Opportunity. Here are some of its key provisions.

Trump Extirpates DEI from the Federal Govt

From the executive order (hence, “EO”):

Sec. 2. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect the civil rights of all Americans and to promote individual initiative, excellence, and hard work. I therefore order all executive departments and agencies (agencies) to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements. I further order all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs, and activities.

Here is the key text from the 1964 civil rights law:

No person in the United States shall, on the ground of race, color, or national origin, be exclued from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Progressives have labored under the delusion that discrimination against groups they consider to be “oppressors” or even merely “not marginalized” or “not underrepresented” or “not minoritized” is legitimate, so using different standards in hiring and admissions for progressive diversity² is legal. It isn’t.

As I wrote in Propaganda Scholarship and Orwellian "Diversity" in Academia

Note there is nothing here [in civil rights law] about specific groups (oppressed or otherwise). It is illegal to discriminate against individuals from oppressed groups, from non-oppressed groups, from oppressor groups, from underrepresented groups, from adequately represented groups, and from overrepresented groups because of their race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

From The Orwelexicon

Trump’s EO goes on to reverse a slew of prior Presidents’ EO’s related to diversity. I summarize some of the key ones he revoked here:

Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965, Revoked

This EO, now revoked, required:

• federal contractors and subcontractors to take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity in their hiring and employment practices.

• Affirmative action plans must include specific efforts to recruit, train, and promote qualified minorities and women.

As Richard Hanania put it in his recent essay on Trump’s EO, it compelled businesses to embrace DEI long before it was called that:

One of the most sinister aspects of all this is that it forced managers at businesses who might want nothing to do with leftist ideas to become foot soldiers in the project of identity-based governance.

Hanania argues, persuasively in my view, that, although it took some time for the full effect of the 1965 EO to be felt, this was one of the major contributors to widespread adoption of “wokeness” throughout the society.

Taessert, 1835, Thermidorian Reaction, the Shooting of Robespierre

Executive Order 13583 of August 18, 2011, Revoked

This EO, now revoked, mandated diversity and inclusion initiatives throughout the federal workforce.

Several other prior EO’s related to diversity were also revoked, but to keep this essay manageable, I now return to other provisions in Trump’s EO.

Extirpating DEI via Anti-Discrimination Provisions in Trump’s EO

Trump also extirpated diversity from all federal grants and contracts. From Trump’s EO:

ii) The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs within the Department of Labor shall immediately cease:
(A) Promoting “diversity”;
(B) Holding Federal contractors and subcontractors responsible for taking “affirmative action”; and
(C) Allowing or encouraging Federal contractors and subcontractors to engage in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin.

and

iii … the employment, procurement, and contracting practices of Federal contractors and subcontractors shall not consider race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion, or national origin in ways that violate the Nation’s civil rights laws.

and

(iv) The head of each agency shall include in every contract or grant award:
(A) A term requiring the contractual counterparty or grant recipient to agree that its compliance in all respects with all applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws is material to the government’s payment decisions for purposes of section 3729(b)(4) of title 31, United States Code; and
(B) A term requiring such counterparty or recipient to certify that it does not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.

iv B comes within inches of banning recipients of federal grants and contracts from having DEI bureaucracies, missions, or “processes” (a fav term of college administrators). However, it has a loophole: DEI is banned if “it violates any Federal anti-discrimination laws.” This seems to imply it is not banned if it does not violate Federal anti-discrimination laws. So the first line of DEI defense at universities and perhaps elsewhere is almost guaranteed to be, “sure we have DEI, but it does not violate any Federal anti-discrimination laws!” Along these lines, I am not on reddit, which is where this is from, but someone I follow on X just posted it:

It remains to be seen how this will work in practice.

Trump’s EO also includes this:

(iii) Terminate all “diversity,” “equity,” “equitable decision-making,” “equitable deployment of financial and technical assistance,” “advancing equity,” and like mandates, requirements, programs, or activities, as appropriate.

This does not prevent, say, your university from having a DEI program, but it does extirpate any DEI requirement from all grants provided by the federal govt via its major scientific funding mechanisms, the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These requirements had become endemic to such funding mechanisms, and some have argued (persuasively, in my view) that they were an inordinate and unnecessary burden; distracted time, effort and money away from the primary scientific missions of those seeking funding for research; and accomplished little beyond enlisting faculty in social justice causes so sacred to many progressives (see, e.g., Politicizing Scientific Funding).

Higher Education Funding

From Trump’s EO:

Sec. 5. Other Actions. Within 120 days of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall jointly issue guidance to all State and local educational agencies that receive Federal funds, as well as all institutions of higher education that receive Federal grants or participate in the Federal student loan assistance program under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq., regarding the measures and practices required to comply with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).

Students for Fair Admissions, of course, was the Supreme Court Case that overturned previous decisions permitting institutions of higher education to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve diversity goals. Such discrimination is now completely illegal, and “diversity” no longer provides a legal backdoor through which progressives can smuggle in discrimination against most “oppressor” or majority groups.

An important exception is wealth, income, and social class. It is not illegal to discriminate on these bases, so that institutions of higher education can still provide lots of extra resources to students from lower SES backgrounds or who are first generation college students. If so, I mostly support this — if those students otherwise merit admissions based on an even playing field. Interestingly, programs that support students from lower SES backgrounds would likely disproportionately help students who are Black, Latino/a, or American Indian, because these groups tend to have lower SES. Such programs would ensure extra resources go to those who need it, and not to some daughter of a rich Nigerian politician.

Dewokification Beyond Education

Section 4 is not about education. Its all about extirpating DEI from the private sector. Most relevant sections are excerpted here:

Sec. 4. Encouraging the Private Sector to End Illegal DEI Discrimination and Preferences…

The Attorney General, within 120 days of this order, in consultation with the heads of relevant agencies and in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy containing recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI. The report shall contain a proposed strategic enforcement plan identifying:

(i) Key sectors of concern within each agency’s jurisdiction;
(ii) The most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners in each sector of concern;
(iii) A plan of specific steps or measures to deter DEI programs or principles (whether specifically denominated “DEI” or otherwise) that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences. As a part of this plan, each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars;
(iv) Other strategies to encourage the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences and comply with all Federal civil-rights laws;
(v) Litigation that would be potentially appropriate for Federal lawsuits, intervention, or statements of interest; and
(vi) Potential regulatory action and sub-regulatory guidance.

For most of the last 50 years, businesses had to fear lawsuits alleging conventional discrimination (against Black people, women, etc.). The now-revoked EO’s that mandated affirmative action and DEI meant that businesses had to go wokish, whether they liked it or not, to comply with federal regulations. This meant DEI programs, implicit bias and microaggression trainings, and the like. But not only are those EO’s now revoked, there is now a countervailing regulatory pressure to rid themselves of DEI programs. This will surely provide the political cover necessary for those opposed to or disinterested in such programs to eliminate them. And it will put pressure even on company executives that have supported these programs to eliminate them or risk federal lawsuits for failing to comply with civil rights law.

Bonus

Trump got right to work on implementing this. Two days ago, he fired Admiral Linda Fagan, who had headed the Coast Guard (from the Reuters article reporting it):

because of "leadership deficiencies, operational failures, and inability to advance the strategic objectives of the U.S. Coast Guard," a senior Department of Homeland Security official said.

One of the reasons, the official said while speaking on the condition of anonymity, was Fagan's "excessive" focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies.

Conclusion

The late Lux Interior, at the beginning of the music video, Bikini Girls with Machine Guns

I do not usually make predictions. I have no idea how this is all going to turn out. But merely sticking close to what the text of Trump’s EO mandates (and knowing a bit about academia), I think the following are likely:

• The EO removes DEI from the federal bureaucracy completely.

  • This includes removing it from scientific grant funding.

    • This means that the federal scientific grant making apparatus will no longer be enlisted in progressive activism via DEI mandates.

    • This means that the federal $ spigot is closing on many of the DEI advocates in academia.

• The political pressure is in full reversal mode; it is going from a huge federal tailwind for DEI to a huge federal headwind against DEI. This will almost surely further reduce DEI nationwide.

• DEI is entrenched in much of academia; as are its advocates, many of whom are tenured or will be tenured soon. They will constitute a constituency seeking to defend DEI when possible, camouflage it when necessary, and hunker down waiting for the political landscape to change again for them to resume their “long march through the institutions.”

• The first line of academic defense will simply be to certify “we are not violating any anti-discrimination laws,” leaving unstated, “you want us to close down our DEI? Bring a lawsuit.” Until such lawsuits are actually brought and won, institutions that wish to keep their DEI programs and bureaucracies will probably be able to do so.

• The second line of defense will be to camouflage them with different names even though they do the same thing. DEI offices will become “Office of Belonging” or “Office of Student Advocacy” or some such. Still, camouflage probably means they will have to be more cautious and less blatant about both discrimination and punishing faculty and students for speech, because it could blow their cover.

• The third line of defense will be retrenchment waiting for the political winds to shift. Even if the DEI bureaucracies are completely extirpated, the grassroots support for them will remain. The political winds will at some point shift back to the left. And, if they play their cards right, they will be ready to resume their long march through the institutions then.

• Some academics will scream about fascism, censorship, and academic freedom. This essay is not about Trump writ large. It is about his EO on DEI. Nothing in that EO is fascism, censorship, or a threat to academic freedom. In fact, it embraces the very anti-fascist rule of law by insisting that the society, including academia, abide by civil rights laws. It infringes on neither institutional nor individual academic freedom. DEI that does not violate anti-discrimination law is still permitted. It is simply no longer funded by federal tax dollars. It probably improves the academic freedom landscape, because DEI bureaucracies, ideology, and rhetoric have been corrosive to academic freedom protections. If you do not believe that, would you like to take a ride on my racist mule (see footnote 1 or 1400 Academics Denounced me as Racist for Using a Quote from Fiddler on the Roof)?

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Footnotes

1. When Racist Mules Attack. It was actually Jesse Singal and Katie Herzog who referred to this incident as “Jussim rides a racist mule” — and I so loved the framing, I’ve run with it ever since. Short version: In 2022, when the world was still completely bonkers from Covid and George Floyd and the mostly peaceful rioting, looting and anarchy produced by the BLM protests, a major psych journal accepted a slew of papers critical of DEI and of the prior papers by one particular scholar advancing DEI. My paper used this line from Fiddler on the Roof to capture progressive disingenuousness in the way they use the term “diversity”: There was the time he sold him a horse, but delivered a mule; i.e., progressives sold us “diversity” but delivered “social justice” (see Propaganda Scholarshop and Orwellian “Diversity” in Academia for a full exposition on this). I was denounced for “comparing Black people to mules” and the episode evoked an online mob, and an open letter, calling for the editor to be ousted (he eventually was) and the papers to be effectively retracted (they were not). Go to The PoPS (Perspectives on Psych Science) Fiasco page for links to original gory details.

2. Progressive diversity. As I pointed out in this essay, progressives created a new meaning of diversity in order to legitimize illegal discrimination based on race, sex, ethnicity, religion and national origin. The original meaning of “diversity” was variety — so that a “diverse” university would have a wide variety of people (diverse, say, in sex, identity, social class and politics). This is not how progressives use the term. Progressive diversity exclusively refers to “underrepresented groups” or “oppressed groups.”