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Editor’s note: The following column was first published in City magazine.
On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order that abolished the “diversity, equity and inclusion” bureaucracy in the federal government.
This move marks a stunning turnaround from just four years ago, when Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, and DEI seemed unstoppable. Following the death of George FloydLeft-wing race activists swept through America’s institutions, rewriting school curricula, changing government policies, and setting up DEI offices in major universities, big-city school districts, and Fortune 100 companies. The Biden administration immediately followed suit, mandating a “whole-of-government equity agenda” that entrenched DEI across the federal government.
Not anymore. President Trump has rescinded Biden’s executive order, directing his Cabinet to “terminate all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions, to the maximum extent permitted by law,” and “all ‘equity’ action plans’, ‘equity ‘actions, initiatives or programs.’ In other words, President Trump has signed the death warrant for DEI within the federal government.
‘UNLAWFUL DEI-MOTIVATED’ WORKPLACE DISCRIMINATION IS ESTABLISHED BY TRUMP’S NEW ACTIVE EEOC SEAT
How did we get here? By patiently building a movement and winning the public debate. In early 2023, I teamed up with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to launch the “Abolish DEI” campaign. We started ending the DEI bureaucracy at New College of Floridaa small public university in Sarasota, where I serve as a trustee. The reaction from the racist left was intense. Protesters descended on campus and left-wing media published hundreds of articles condemning the action. But we stood our ground and argued that public institutions should judge individuals based on their performance, rather than their origins.
The argument began to take hold. The polling data showed that Americans supported a “color-blind society” over a “race-conscious society” by large margins. Even the New York Times, one of the biggest drivers of left-wing racism, began publishing pieces criticizing DEI. At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement became mired in scandals and leading intellectual voices of DEI, such as Ibram
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We pushed further. Gov. DeSantis led the way, signing legislation that abolished the DEI bureaucracy at all Florida public universities. A dozen other red states followed, restricting DEI programs and banning DEI-style discrimination in their public institutions. The process became a virtuous cycle: Each state that passed an anti-DEI law reduced the risk that the next state would do the same. The campaign moved from the domain of debate to the domain of policy.
Trump’s victory is over Kamala Harris on November 5, DEI’s fate was sealed. Corporate America, including companies like Walmart and Meta, interpreted the event as an incentive to change and voluntarily ended their DEI programs before Trump took office. Mark Zuckerberg made this explicit, stating that the country had reached a “cultural tipping point,” which convinced him to abandon DEI programs. And Zuckerberg, along with numerous other tech titans, sat prominently at Monday’s inauguration.
In a sense, Trump’s executive order on Monday was already priced in: People knew it was coming. Still, it is a reward for those who built this campaign from the ground up. There will be many battles ahead—the bureaucracy will try to circumvent the order, and more needs 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 color-blind equality are on the move.
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None of it was inevitable – and none of it will happen. It took courage, hard work and more than a little luck. But this is undoubtedly a time to be optimistic.
America’s institutions are not beyond repair, as many feared. The American people were wise enough to realize that their country might not have survived another four or eight years government by DEI. They spoke on November 5, and now President Trump is acting accordingly.
