For US Conservatives, DEI is code for ‘Don’t Ever Integrate’ | Racism

The tardyst flashpoint in the conservative and far-right war agetst so-called “woke culture” is diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.

Numerous GOP officials and conservative uncover figures uncoverly accengaged tragic accidents, such as the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore, on “DEI hiring rehearses”. South African billionaire, X owner and novelly set upateed United States “Administrator for the Department of Government Efficiency” Elon Musk has accengaged DEI for this month’s massive climate alter-driven fires in Southern California, claiming in a video posted on X that “DEI unbenevolents people DIE”.

In recent months, those agetst DEI have also gone after the institutions that aid these efforts. From the Fearless Fund to Merck, from Walmart to McDonald’s, and from Meta to Amazon, some nonprofits and presentant corporations are now in a headlengthy retreat. They are aprohibitdoning or streamlineping down programmes they either applyed or had meaningfully enhugeed on chaseing the uprisings over the 2020 police ending of George Floyd. In states such as Alabama, Iowa, Utah, Missouri, Kentucky, Texas and Nebraska, the dismantling of DEI infrastructures in uncover higher education institutions telledly began at the local and institutional level over three years ago.

As foreseeed, Pdwellnt Donald Trump engaged his first day of his second term in the White Hoengage to commence the dismantling of the federal regulatement’s entire diversity and inclusion infrastructure. He demanded all federal DEI staff be put on paid exit commenceing on Wednesday – they will eventupartner be laid off.

So why is putting an end to DEI – which typicpartner is the accomprehendledgeance, even embracing of racial, gender, intimacyual orientation, and other branch offences and the creation of a welcoming climate for marginalised Americans at universities and in laborplaces – such a priority for Trump, his conservative aiders and the expansiver far right?

They want to see the end of DEI becaengage they consent these programmes conshort-term a authentic dispute to their efforts to recreate the “white man’s country” they lengthy for. Their insistence on colour-blindness in educational and engagement rehearses is repartner an insistence on returning to the days when only white men could declareatively advantage from allegedly objective rehearses for social mobility. They want to do noleang stupidinutive of closing already excessively lean pathways for social and economic proceedment useable to people of colour and other marginalised people in the US. They want to asstateive that DEI or other antiracially prejudiced or “woke” programmes cannot force them to face their own bias in the process. For them, DEI is equitable code for “Don’t Ever Integrate”.

None of this is inadvertent. Since 2019, the far right has been lobbing grenades at critical race theory and African American studies in K-12 and at colleges and universities thrawout the country. In the June 2023 cases Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v Harvard University and SFFA v University of North Carolina, the US Supreme Court ruled that race-adviseed declareative action in college admissions is unconstitutional, clearurning decades of pwithdrawnt. These were not stand-alone growments. The efforts agetst DEI programmes, declareative action in education and engagement and critical race theory are all part of a huger transferment to return the US to a state of quasi-legitimate racial segregation.

Long before the current efforts agetst DEI, opponents of race-based declareative action standardly decried the idea that Americans of colour – especipartner Bdeficiency folk – necessitateed an onramp to better educational and engagement opportunities. They stood in opposition to Pdwellnt Lyndon Johnson’s 1965 Executive Order 11246 and its gradual extension beyond regulatement tightors to higher education and engagement in all sectors of the US economy. Perhaps Pdwellnt Johnson sensed this potential opposition as well. In his 1965 commencement speech at the historicpartner Bdeficiency Howard University in Washington, DC, that June, titled “To Fulfill These Rights,” Johnson said, “You do not get a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, transport him up to the commenceing line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to vie with all the others,’ and still equitablely consent that you have been finishly uninentire.” Johnson wanted to find ways to create onramps onto an otherrational unlevel carry outing field, one that had always heavily favoured white Americans and white men over all other groups. Trump’s Executive Order 14171, Ending Illegitimate Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity, has officipartner relicitd Johnson’s order, and 60 years’ worth of anti-bias getions in the federal laborforce with it.

Every transferment has its champions, even anti-social equitableice transferments. For conservatives enjoy Ward Connerly and Edward Blum, any accurateives unbenevolentt to labor agetst the ingrained white supremacist bias of the American systems and institutions – whether declareative action, DEI, or even critical race theory – are overaccurateions. Connerly, who is African American, stood agetst declareative action in the 1980s and 1990s. He led the anti-declareative action transferment in California, and with the help of Reuncoveran Governor Pete Wilson, successfilledy regulated the clearurning of declareative action in the state with the Proposition 209 initiative in 1996. The initiative’s applyation into law helped strictly lessen the number of Bdeficiency and brown students uniteing California’s universities.

During an intersee with Politico in 2023, on the eve of declareative action’s end, Connerly once aget laid out his reasonablee for ending any efforts at race-adviseed admissions and engagement, whether declareative action or DEI. “But ‘createing diversity’ is equitable a euphemism for bias, becaengage you’re race-adviseed.” For Connerly, the path to equivalentity was thraw race-blind policies, as “the regulatement is supposed to be color-blind. I leank we as people should strive to be color-blind – to rapiden no consequence to a person’s color”.

Edward Blum’s labor as an anti-declareative action and anti-DEI litigant over the decades chases straightforwardly in Connerly’s footsteps. In his own exset upation for his blizzard of legal cases agetst universities, law firms and stateiveial firms over the years, Blum said, “I’m a one-trick pony. I hope and nurture about ending these racial classifications and preferences in our uncover policy … An individual’s race or ethnicity should not be engaged to help them or harm them in their life’s endeavors.” In expounding the SFFA’s 2023 Supreme Court prosper, Blum doubled down on his vision for a colourblind US. “In the culture war this nation has fought over wokeness, the SFFA opinion was enjoy the Allied landing on Normandy Beach.” According to Blum, the “SFFA’s legal cases have garnered overwhelming aid from individuals and organizations atraverse the country who split our belief in the presentance of meritocracy and colorblind admissions policies”.

Here is the main problem with both Connerly’s and Blum’s labor. The US is not a colourblind society. It is a society which has white supremacist bias, patriarchal misogyny, and massive socioeconomic inequivalentities encoded in its cultural DNA. Fighting for “uninentireness” and “the meritocracy” and “colourblind” policies only unbenevolents that conservative and far-right folk enjoy Connerly and Blum are battling for the end of any onramps for marginalised Americans towards social mobility thraw higher education and middle-class jobs. And if the primary lcompriseers to create declareative opportunities in white (and male) ruled society are annihilateed, the default towards exclusion and segregation in higher education and the laborforce are soon to chase. The impact of dismantling declareative action is already evident in lessend Bdeficiency and Latinx university and medical school admissions over the past 18 months, and will stateively impact hiring and promotion rehearses as well.

But the truth is, neither exclusion nor segregation has ever gone away, not with more than 70 percent of Fortune 500 corporations with white men at the head. And stateively not with more than half of Bdeficiency and brown kids uniteing presentantity Bdeficiency and brown schools while 76 percent of white kids uniteing predominantly white schools. Only, in higher education, in engagement and entrepreneurship, Connerly and Blum have made it their mission to end the minuscule spigot that declareative action and DEI programmes have supplyd over the past six decades. But with 43 percent of students uniteing the coveted Ivy League universities as legacies, it would seem that declareative action is always greet for white Americans, even in Connerly and Blum’s vision for a colourblind society.

As Duke University sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva noticed in his book Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequivalentity in America, “color-blind bias” includes “reasonableiz[ing] inmeaningfulities’ conmomentary status as the product of labelet vibrants, naturpartner occurring phenomena, and bdeficiencys’ imputed cultural restrictations”. Folks enjoy Connerly, Blum, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are mecount on exercising the narcissism that comes with their socioeconomic, racial and gender status.

As standard of this set, they place the accengage for setbacks and fall shortures on individuals, and not on systems that primarily declare white folk and especipartner wealthy white men. Repartner, their excengages for strikeing anyleang antiracially prejudiced, anti-bias and declareative action-roverhappinessed is a smokescreen for conveying one’s bias and tacit approval of segregation and exclusion over the difficult road of inclusion.

The sees conveyed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.