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Editor’s note: The following column was originally published. city journal.
President Trump signed an executive order on Monday abolishing the federal government’s “diversity, equity, and inclusion” bureaucracy.
The move marks a stunning reversal of fortunes from just four years ago, when Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, and DEI seemed unstoppable. After George Floyd’s death, left-wing racial activists stormed America’s institutions, rewriting school curricula, changing government policy, and establishing DEI offices at major universities, big-city school districts, and Fortune 100 companies. . The Biden administration quickly followed suit, mandating a “Government-wide Equity Agenda” to entrench DEI in the federal government.
No more. President Trump revoked Biden’s executive order, telling the Cabinet to “terminate all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ positions and positions to the fullest extent permitted by law” and “terminate all ‘equity actions’. “term plan” and “impartiality.” “Actions, initiatives, programs.” In other words, President Trump has signed a death warrant for DEI within the federal government.
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How did we get here? By patiently building a movement and winning the public debate. In early 2023, I partnered with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to launch the “Abolish DEI” campaign. We started by eliminating the DEI bureaucracy at New College of Florida, a small public university in Sarasota where I serve on the board. The reaction from the racist left was fierce. Protesters gathered on campus, and left-wing media published hundreds of articles condemning the movement. But we remained steadfast, insisting that public institutions should judge individuals based on merit, not pedigree.
The discussion began to take hold. Polling data shows that Americans favor a “colorblind society” over a “racially conscious society” by a wide margin. Even the New York Times, one of the biggest proponents of left-wing racism, has begun publishing articles criticizing DEI. At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement was mired in scandal, and key DEI intellectuals such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo were exposed to continued public scrutiny and seemed to disappear from the spotlight.
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we moved forward. Governor DeSantis spearheaded the signing of a bill that eliminates DEI bureaucracy at all Florida public universities. More than a dozen other red states followed suit, restricting DEI programs and banning DEI-style discrimination in public institutions. This process became a virtuous cycle, with each state passing an anti-DEI bill reducing the risk that the next state would pass the same bill. The campaign moved from the realm of debate to the realm of policy.
Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris on November 5 sealed the fate of DEI. American companies, including companies like Walmart and Meta, interpreted this event as an incentive to change and voluntarily ended their DEI programs before Trump took office. Mark Zuckerberg has claimed that the country has reached a “cultural tipping point” and has vowed to persuade him to shut down DEI programs. And Mr. Zuckerberg took a prominent seat at Monday’s inauguration ceremony, along with many other tech titans.
In a sense, Trump’s executive order on Monday was baked in and people knew it was coming. Still, it’s a crowning achievement for the people who built this campaign from the ground up. There will be many battles ahead — the bureaucracy will try to circumvent the mandate, and more work will need to be done on civil rights reform in general — but for now we should celebrate. The forces of left-wing racism are on the defensive, and the forces of colorblind equality are advancing.
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None of that is inevitable and nothing will ever go forward. It took courage, hard work, and a good deal of luck. But there is no doubt that this is a moment for optimism.
The American system is not beyond repair, as many feared. The American people were smart enough to realize that their country might not have survived another four or eight years. Government through DEI. They met on Nov. 5, and President Trump is now acting accordingly.
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