Photo: Roberto Schmidt/AFP/Getty Images
Whatever you think of the propriety or effectiveness of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in workplaces or educational institutions, you may still be shocked at the central position of DEI-bashing in the new Trump administration’s thinking. One of the executive orders Trump signed before a hooting crowd of his supporters on Inauguration Day ended DEI programs in the federal government, describing them as both “radical and wasteful” and “illegal and immoral.” The order also required federal agencies to identify contractors and grantees who engaged in promoting DEI and associated policies (e.g., “environmental justice”).
The very next day, Trump extended this crusade fully into the private sector with another order bending federal civil-rights enforcement actions to the novel task of rooting out DEI everywhere. And one of the objects of this week’s chaotic and quickly aborted OMB federal funding freeze was to push the government to ensure that not one nickel of money would go to anyone practicing or promoting DEI policies. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management, which has become something of a fiefdom for presidential sidekick and DOGE director Elon Musk (known for his particularly intense hatred of DEI), announced an email tip line to make it easy for federal employees to anonymously rat out colleagues who showed interest in DEI.
Apparently, that wasn’t enough, though, as The Wall Street Journal reports:
President Trump’s Office of Personnel Management last week required federal agencies to close offices that focus exclusively on diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility and place employees of those divisions on paid administrative leave by Jan. 22. Agency leaders were required to submit a list of all DEI employees the following day.
After doing so, agencies were asked to identify additional staff who worked on those areas during a meeting with OPM staff last week, the officials said. These people said it seemed that the Trump administration had expected the number to be larger. Some agency officials parsed through position descriptions to find additional related roles.
The Trump administration has followed up with agencies about employees thought to be working on diversity issues as well as those who have attended internal diversity events, people familiar with the matter said.
The witch hunt goes beyond hiring practices, by the way, the Journal makes clear:
In a follow-up meeting on Tuesday, two people said, the OPM told agency officials that employee resource groups — also known as affinity groups, such as for Black or LGBTQ staff — cannot hold meetings during work hours or use government resources. Workplaces typically use those forums for staff to share common career obstacles and advancement strategies.
While a lot of this craziness has been going on out of the national spotlight, Trump’s obsession with DEI, and perhaps a big part of his motivation, became clear in his response to the fatal plane crash in Washington on January 29, as my colleague Margaret Hartmann explained:
Within minutes, the “presidential” mirage dissolved. Trump unleashed an unusually appalling rant, blaming the crash on Barack Obama, Joe Biden, former Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg, DEI, and people with disabilities.
“I put safety first. Obama, Biden, and the Democrats put policy first, and they put politics at a level that nobody’s ever seen,” Trump said. “They actually came out with a directive: ‘too white.’ And we want the people that are competent.”
Asked bluntly why he thought DEI might have something to do with the crash, Trump replied, “Because I have common sense. Okay. And, unfortunately, a lot of people don’t.”
At the same event, new Defense secretary Pete Hegseth said that “the era of DEI is gone at the Defense Department, and we need the best and brightest,” as though that might be germane to the Army helicopter involved in the crash. And Vice-President J.D. Vance spelled it out more explicitly.
“When you don’t have the best standards in who you’re hiring, it means on the one hand you’re not getting the best people in government. But on the other hand, it puts stress on the people who are already there,” Vance said at the briefing. “And I think that is a core part of what President Trump is going to bring and has already brought to Washington, D.C.”
The Vance angle was especially revealing, since it implies that even if a white man were responsible for the crash, it was probably a white man “stressed” by DEI practices.
But Team Trump wasn’t done exploiting the tragedy to grind its anti-DEI axes. The president released a new executive order on Thursday afternoon demanding an “assessment” of links between DEI policies in the Biden administration and the crash:
This shocking event follows problematic and likely illegal decisions during the Obama and Biden Administrations that minimized merit and competence in the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The Obama Administration implemented a biographical questionnaire at the FAA to shift the hiring focus away from objective aptitude. During my first term, my Administration raised standards to achieve the highest standards of safety and excellence. But the Biden Administration egregiously rejected merit-based hiring, requiring all executive departments and agencies to implement dangerous “diversity equity and inclusion” tactics, and specifically recruiting individuals with “severe intellectual” disabilities in the FAA.
I am … ordering the Secretary of Transportation (Secretary) and the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (Administrator) to review all hiring decisions and changes to safety protocols made during the prior 4 years, and to take such corrective action as necessary to achieve uncompromised aviation safety, including the replacement of any individuals who do not meet qualification standards. This review shall include a systematic assessment of any deterioration in hiring standards and aviation safety standards and protocols during the Biden Administration.
This bizarre angle on a completely uninvestigated tragedy shows how powerful the DEI issue really is in MAGA-land. If anyone in the public or private sector does anything wrong, the first place to look is DEI. In this case, it reflects an apparent assumption that women and people of color can’t be trusted to handle dangerous machines or technology. It’s an instant scapegoating machine based fundamentally on bigotry.
There is one other reason DEI may have come to Trump’s mind instantly when he heard about the American Airlines crash: Several weeks ago, the possibility that DEI had endangered air safety was raised by — you guessed it! — Elon Musk, as NBC News reported on January 10:
Musk claimed in a series of posts on X that efforts to diversify workforces at those companies have made air travel less safe. …
Musk’s decision to wade into the subject of airline safety follows discussions that were sparked Friday when a panel blew off a Boeing jet while it was flying.
Musk’s statements on the topic started Tuesday when he responded to an X user who speculated that IQ scores of United Airlines pilots who went to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) were lower than the average of IQ of Air Force pilots. Musk replied to that post with his own attack on programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
“It will take an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of DIE,” Musk wrote, misspelling the DEI acronym.
The people running the United States government are infecting each other with racist and sexist nonsense to an alarming degree right now. But it’s likely anyone who points that out to them will be found immediately guilty of promoting DEI.
