Donald Trump has a long history of racism, from excusing the actions of Nazis to promoting the racist birther conspiracy theory. Trump also surrounds himself with racist advisers like Stephen Miller, who is currently formulating the administration’s harsh immigration policy.
Trump continued this approach in the first few days of his second presidency by issuing a series of executive orders meant to undo past actions by the U.S. government to address the harmful effects of racism.
Trump and his fellow Republicans have for years attacked programs meant to counter racism and encourage diversity, attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. They have falsely claimed that these programs prioritize mediocrity over qualified individuals and decision making. But in reality, the anti-DEI crusade has been a smokescreen for rolling back civil rights.
In his executive order “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” the Trump administration made this posture clear. The order explicitly rescinds Executive Order 11246, which President Lyndon Johnson signed in 1965—an order Johnson used to desegregate federal contracting.
As the Department of Labor website explains (for now, at least), the Johnson order “reinforced the requirement that federal contractors not discriminate in employment and take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity based on race, color, religion, and national origin.” The department also notes that the Johnson order—now gone, thanks to Trump’s actions—were a “key landmark in a series of federal actions aimed at ending racial, religious and ethnic discrimination.”
Reversing an order meant to attack racism and pro-segregation policies was described by the Trump administration in a release as “protecting civil rights and expanding individual opportunity.”
In addition to undoing Johnson’s actions against segregation, Trump also blamed airline problems on diversity programs.
The administration issued an order instructing the Department of Transportation and the FAA to “immediately stop Biden DEI hiring programs and return to non-discriminatory, merit-based hiring.” The order claimed without evidence that increasing diversity in transportation programs somehow makes travel more dangerous for Americans.
As evidence, the administration pointed to a January 2023 FAA outage as “an illustration of the importance of FAA competence.” But in reality, as the FAA determined at the time of the outage, the cause was a corrupted database issue that occurred when files were deleted by mistake by a contractor. That’s not exactly a diversity issue.
Kash Patel
The Trump administration also issued a blanket order that fires all staff within the federal government tasked with addressing diversity, equity, and inclusion issues.
But even as decades of work to dismantle bigotry were being undone, new reporting revealed that Trump’s inner circle has benefitted from these supposedly problematic programs.
The New York Times reported that Kash Patel, Trump’s controversial pick to lead the FBI, benefitted from a DEI program. Patel participated in the American Bar Association’s Judicial Intern Opportunity Program in 2003. According to the association’s website, the program “provides opportunities to students who are members of groups that are traditionally underrepresented in the profession, including students from minority racial and ethnic groups.”
Patel benefitted from the same kind of programs that Trump is undermining for millions of Americans, but as part of the presidential inner circle, he gets a pass.
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