By Kenin M. Spivak
Wednesday, May 11, 2022
In April, the Biden administration powerfully
signaled that it will not be constrained by the Constitution or federal law as
it implements its “whole-of-government” executive order to embed “diversity, equity, and
inclusion” (DEI) in all aspects of federal-government policies and American
lives.
In 2021 the administration amplified its initial
executive order with a second order on DEI in the federal workforce, a government-wide strategic plan, and a Gender Equity Plan that paints a
dystopian picture for American women and, like the administration’s other DEI
plans, focuses on people of color and members of the LGBTQI+ community.
The American Rescue Plan (ARP) and the infrastructure bill included billions to advance equitable outcomes for restaurant owners,
farmers, small businesses, homeowners, and construction companies that are
denied, depending on the program, to straight white males, other whites, and
Asian Americans.
More than once, the Supreme Court has observed that
“distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their
very nature odious to a free people” (e.g., Rice v. Cayetano [2000]
and Hirabayashi v. United States [1943]). As Chief Justice
John Roberts has noted, using racial discrimination to undo racial
discrimination doesn’t work; rather, “the way to stop discrimination on the
basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race” (Parents
Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1 [2007]).
In Shaw v. Hunt (1996), the Court put it directly:
“Racial classifications are antithetical to the Fourteenth Amendment.”
Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits
discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin in federally
funded programs, and Title VII does the same in private employment. The Civil
Rights Act of 1866 has been construed generally to prohibit the federal
government from varying individual property and contract rights based on race
or color. In Bostock v. Clayton County, the Supreme Court recently
extended these protections to gender identification.
Consistent with precedent and federal law, the Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals held that the ARP’s restaurant grants violate the 14th
Amendment, and the farm program has been enjoined by numerous federal courts. More than a dozen lawsuits are pending against Biden’s DEI
programs.
The New York Times reported in February that the administration is
worried about these lawsuits and is drafting orders to help communities of
color without defining them as such. For example, the Justice40 Initiative directs at least 40 percent of
climate-change spending to “disadvantaged communities” and the administration’s
effort to address inequity in home appraisals refers to neighborhoods, though
its press release acknowledges its goal is to prevent
appraisals from being a “proxy for racial demographics.”
These clumsy attempts at obfuscation may buy some time,
but they are unlikely to change the result. The purpose of an administration
that declares DEI a whole-of-government effort on its second day, repeatedly
castigates “white privilege,” acknowledges its racial- and sexual-orientation
goals, and heaps praise on the 1619 Project, Ibram X.
Kendi, and the Abolitionist Teacher Network, which advocates “disrupt[ing]
whiteness,” cannot be doubted.
Last month the administration floored the accelerator,
issuing fact sheets, orders, and websites to
deliver what it refers to as economic
justice, educational
equity, environmental
justice, civil
rights, health equity, criminal
justice, housing justice, and global
equality. The administration also announced that 140 agencies,
including all cabinet-level agencies, are developing Equity Action Plans for
“addressing — and achieving — equity in their mission delivery,” and
published links to
at least 25 of these plans.
The administration makes no meaningful effort to disguise
its purpose.
Covid-19 tests and vaccines are prioritized by race, with $785 million in ARP funding
allocated to support communities of color, rural areas, low-income populations,
and tribal communities. Of that sum, $35 million was directed to “improve
diversity in the public health workforce,” i.e., to hire racial minorities and
LGBTQI+ individuals without regard to whether they were the most qualified.
The administration also allocated $260 million to eliminate
administrative barriers it claims disproportionately prevent workers
of color from completing benefit applications. This logic is similar to the
assertion that blacks can’t get ID cards for voting.
At least an additional $100 billion has been allocated
over the next five years for investment in small disadvantaged businesses (SDBs), including
minority-owned businesses. The administration has ordered 11 percent of federal contracting dollars to be
awarded to SDBs, up from the statutory goal of 5 percent, and intends to
increase the allocation to 15 percent by 2025. In FY 2020 just 1.7 percent of
federal contracts went to black-owned SDBs, and 1.8 percent to Hispanic-owned
SDBs.
The administration also intends to increase
grants to “disadvantaged minorities” for medical research,
infrastructure, student aid, and public housing. Because many of the proposed
grantees don’t comply with federal requirements, the administration will
“selectively” waive compliance, “ensuring that application reviews are
equitable by using evidence-informed decision-making processes.”
To require DEI in education, the administration issued
executive orders to promote “equitable access to and participation in
college-readiness, advanced placement courses, and internship opportunities”
for black, Hispanic, and Native American students.
The latest equity plans call for more of the same:
·
The Department of Defense will increase procurement from
minority institutions, invest in minority K–12 STEM education, traditionally
black universities, and a “development framework to ensure ethical (to include
equitable) AI,” focus on how “extremist or dissident ideologies violate the
fundamental principles of the Department,” and moderate its standards to
support transgender individuals.
·
The Department of Homeland Security will expand
humanitarian protection for immigrants to avoid causing fear or other
obstacles, address “barriers” to underserved communities, “expand federal
contracting opportunities for companies that are owned by members of
underserved communities, including women, people of color, individuals with
disabilities, and individuals with arrest and conviction records,” and advance
a “victim-centered” approach.
·
The Department of Justice will embed equity considerations
into financial-assistance programs, cultural grants, and contracting.
·
The U.S. Agency for International Development will
integrate equity into its agency policies, advance civil rights, reduce
application requirements for organizations serving historically marginal
groups, and designate an Inclusive Development Advisor at each mission.
·
The National Science Foundation will collect data on race
and gender for students and research directors, invest in civil rights, and
increase the participation of minority-serving institutions.
·
The Department of Education will collect demographic data
from all schools, revise its criteria for financial assistance to benefit
minority-serving institutions, invest in civil rights, historically black
colleges, and minority-owned small businesses, focus its grants on “underserved
students,” ensure government funds are expended equitably, and publish a rule
to prohibit “discrimination” against transgender students in sports.
There are constitutional, lawful, ethical, race-blind
ways of helping the disadvantaged. Enforcing anti-discrimination laws,
protecting minority communities by funding police and prosecuting offenders,
encouraging child-rearing within families, and supporting charter schools that
meet the needs of diverse parents and students are important steps. So is
refocusing K–12 education on reading, writing, and arithmetic, instead of
anti-racism and social justice. Outreach programs, tutoring, and after-school
programs also can make a difference. College admissions can take into
account bona fide testing differences in the correlation of
test scores to performance, but not race-based preferences.
Quotas and handouts revictimize disadvantaged minorities.
Give someone a fish and he will eat for the day; teach someone how to fish and
his family will eat for a lifetime. But collecting data that categorize every
American by race, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation, and then
allocating rewards by those metrics, is what social engineers and racists do,
not people who genuinely seek unity.
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