The Project 2025 playbook was written by more than 20 officials who Trump himself appointed during his first term. If he has āno ideaā who they are, heās showing an alarming cognitive decline.
As the former chairman of the Republican Party, Michael Steele put it, āOk, letās all play with Stupid for minute ā¦ so exactly how do you ādisagreeā with something you āknow nothing aboutā or āhave no ideaā who is behind, saying or doing the thing you disagree with?ā
Trump has promised to give right-wing evangelical Christians what they want. Accordingly, Project 2025 calls for withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, expelling trans service members from the military, banning lifesaving gender-affirming care for young people, ending all diversity programs, and using āschool choiceā to gut public education.
Congressional Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday that would eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion positions in the federal
By: Aaron Sibarium
Published: Jun 12, 2024
Congressional Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday that would eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion positions in the federal government and bar federal contractors from requiring DEI statements and training sessions.
TheĀ Dismantle DEI Act, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas), would also bar federal grants from going to diversity initiatives, cutting off a key source of support for DEI programs in science and medicine. Other provisions would prevent accreditation agencies from requiring DEI in schools and bar national securities associations, like NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange, from instituting diversity requirements for corporate boards.
"The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division," Vance told theĀ Washington Free Beacon. "It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society."
The bill is the most comprehensive legislative effort yet to excise DEI initiatives from the federal government and regulated entities. It offers a preview of how a Republican-controlled government, led by former president Donald Trump, could crack down on the controversial diversity programs that have exploded since 2020, fueled in part by President Joe Bidenās executive orders mandating a "whole-of-government" approach toĀ "racial equity."
FromĀ NASAĀ and theĀ National Science FoundationĀ to theĀ Internal Revenue ServiceĀ and theĀ U.S Army, all federal agencies require some form of diversity training. Mandatory workshops have drilled tax collectors on "cultural inclusion," military commanders on male pregnancy, and nuclear engineers on the "roots of white male culture," whichāaccording to aĀ trainingĀ for Sandia National Laboratories, the Energy Department offshoot that designs Americaās nuclear arsenalāinclude a "can-do attitude" and "hard work."
The Sandia training, conducted in 2019 by a group called "White Men As Full Diversity Partners,"Ā instructedĀ nuclear weapons engineers to write "a short message" to "white women" and "people of color" about what theyād learned, according to screenshots of the training obtained by the Manhattan Instituteās Christopher Rufo.
The bill would ban these trainings and close the government DEI offices that conduct them. It would also prevent personnel laid off by those closures from being transferred or reassignedāa move meant to stop diversity initiatives from continuing under another name.
The prohibitions, which cover outside DEI consultants as well as government officials, would be enforced via a private right of action and could save the government billions of dollars. In 2023, the Biden administrationĀ spent over $16 millionĀ on diversity training for government employees alone. It requested an additionalĀ $83 millionĀ that year for DEI programs at the State Department andĀ $9.2 millionĀ for the Office of Personnel Managementās Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibilityāone of the many bureaucracies the bill would eliminate.
A large chunk of savings would come from axing DEI grants made through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has a near monopoly on science funding in the United States. The agency hosts anĀ entire webpageĀ for "diversity related" grant opportunitiesāincluding several that prioritize applicants from "diverse backgrounds"āand has set asideĀ billions of dollarsĀ for "minority institutions" andĀ researchersĀ with a "commitment to promoting diversity." All of those programs would be on the chopping block should Vance and Cloudās bill pass.
Cosponsored by Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), Rick Scott (R., Fla.), Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), Bill Cassidy (R., La.), and Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.) in the Senate, the Dismantle DEI Act has drawn support from prominent conservative advocacy groups, including Heritage Action and the Claremont Institute. At a time of ideological fracture on the rightādebates about foreign aid and the proper role of government bitterly divided Trumpās primary challengers, for example, both in 2016 and 2024āWednesdayās bill aims to provide a rallying cry most Republicans can get behind: DEI needs to die.
"Itās absurd to fund these divisive policies, especially using Americans' tax dollars," Cloud told theĀ Free Beacon.Ā "And itās time for Congress to put an end to them once and for all."
The bill has the potential to free millions of Americansāboth in government and the private sectorāfrom the sort of divisive diversity trainings that have become an anti-woke bĆŖte noire. Its most consequential provisions might be those governing federal contractors, which employĀ up to a fifthĀ of the American workforce and include companies like Pfizer, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and Verizon.
Each firm runs a suite of DEI programs, from race-based fellowships and "resource groups" to mandatory workshops, that have drawn public outcry and in some casesĀ sparked legal challenges. By targeting these contractors, the bill could purge DEI from large swaths of the U.S. economy without directly outlawing the practice in private institutions.
Targeting accreditors, meanwhile, could remove a key driver of DEI programs in professional schools. TheĀ American Bar AssociationĀ and theĀ Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredit all law and medical schools in the United States and derive much of their power from the U.S. Department of Education, have both made DEI materialāincluding course content on "anti-racism"āa requirement for accreditation, over theĀ objectionsĀ of some of their members.
Those mandates haveĀ spurredĀ a handful ofĀ law schoolsĀ to require entire classes on critical race theory. The transformation has been even more acute at medical schools, which, perĀ accreditation guidelinesĀ released in 2022, should teach students to identify "systems of power, privilege, and oppression."
Yale Medical School now requires residents to take a mandatory course on "advocacy" and "health justice," for example. And at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine, students must complete aĀ "health equity"Ā courseĀ that promotes police abolition, describes weight loss as a "hopeless endeavor," and states that "biomedical knowledge" is "just one way" of understanding "health and the world."
While the bill wouldnāt outlaw these lessons directly, it would prevent accreditors recognized by the Education Department from mandating them. Such agencies, whose seal of approval is a prerequisite for federal funds, would need to certify that their accreditation standards do not "require, encourage, or coerce any institution of higher education to engage in prohibited" DEI practices, according to the text of the bill. They would also need to certify that they do not "assess the commitment of an institution of higher education to any ideology, belief, or viewpoint" as part of the accreditation process.
Other, more technical provisions would eliminate diversity quotas at federal agencies and end a racially targeted grant program in the Department of Health and Human Services.
Unlike past GOP efforts to limit DEI, which have focused on the content of diversity trainings and the use of explicit racial preferences, the bill introduced Wednesday would also ax requirements related to data collection. It repeals aĀ lawĀ that forces the armed services to keep tabs on the racial breakdown of officers, for example, as well as aĀ lawĀ that requires intelligence officials to collect data on the "diversity and inclusion efforts" of their agencies.
Though officials could still collect the data if they so choose, the bill would mark a small step toward colorblindness in a country where racial record-keepingārequired by many federal agenciesāhas long been the norm.
"DEI destroys competence while making Americans into enemies," said Arthur Milikh, the director of the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life, one of the conservative groups supporting the bill. "This ideology must be fought, and its offices removed."
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I don't care who raised it. If the Dems raised it, I'd support it. DEI is absolute poison.
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