The one area in which I think the Trump administration’s wrecking-ball approach to federal government reform is necessary and warranted is removing, root and branch, the pernicious DEI ideology and infrastructure.
However, when the Trump administration reaches beyond the federal government and attempts to dictate the internal policies of universities and private businesses with government contracts, it exceeds the writ of the presidency, properly understood.
To minimize misunderstandings and misperceptions, let’s begin with a few definitions of terms and concepts, at least for the purposes of this column.
The term that I think best describes the pernicious ideology is identity and grievance politics. The term most often used in political discourse these days is “woke”. However, “woke” is also used to describe identity-consciousness that is not pernicious, which is also a place in which the Trump administration is getting things wrong.
The pernicious ideology holds that the United States is rotten from its inception and at its core. All of the high-falutin founding rhetoric and government structures were camouflage for propping up and perpetuating white male supremacy. According to this ideology, the idea of the United States aspiring to be an ever more expansive meritocracy is also a snare and a delusion. Racism and sexism are irredeemably entrenched. The only remedy is compensatory preferences based upon group identity.
This ideology has taken over higher education. Under the Biden administration, it was embedded throughout the federal government. Big business has extensively adopted it.
Now, racism and sexism have characterized the United States for most of our history. However, that high-falutin founding rhetoric and government structures, far from propping up and perpetuating white male supremacy, has been the moral force and mechanism for eroding barriers to participation in a very real American meritocracy.
Not only is the ideology’s critique wrong, its remedy is rejected by the American people. Every time preferences based upon identity are on the ballot, they are rejected, even in very liberal states such as California. The American people want this country to continue to be an ever more expansive meritocracy.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is the euphemism advocates for this pernicious ideology have adopted to camouflage an institutionalization of preferences and indoctrination. There is no law mandating a DEI infrastructure within the federal government. President Trump was fully within his authority to order it dismantled. And as entrenched as it has become, a wrecking ball was probably the only way to get it done.
Which brings us to Columbia University. As part of its anti-woke effort, itself disguised as an anti-antisemitism initiative, the Trump administration suspended $400 million in federal grants and contracts unless Columbia adopted various internal policies.
Now, I believe that universities should have a zero-tolerance policy for protests that disrupt or block their academic programming. Students who engage in such behavior should be expelled. Faculty who participate should be fired. As should administrators lacking the spine to enforce such a zero-tolerance policy.
However, I am not in charge of these universities. And neither is Donald Trump.
Trump is president of the United States. The Constitution says that his domestic responsibility is to faithfully execute the laws. Faithfully execute them, not make them. Making them is reserved for Congress.
There is no federal law forbidding student protesters from wearing masks. Yet such a policy was one of the demands of the Trump administration on Columbia. As was additional oversight of its Middle East studies department, which not only finds no grounding in law but arguably violates the First Amendment.
The Trump administration wants to attach conditions to federal grants and contracts to force unrelated internal administrative changes within universities. I believe that higher education has gone badly amiss and corrective action is urgently needed. However, there is nothing in the Constitution or statutory law empowering the president to be the agent of such corrective action. Private universities are governed by boards of some sort. Public universities have some sort of state governing structure. The impetus for corrective action lies in those entities and, in the case of public universities, in state legislatures.
In faithfully executing the laws dealing with federal grants and contracts, the sole consideration of the executive branch should be to get the best result for the public at the least cost. The Biden administration was injecting DEI considerations into these awards. The Trump administration could have usefully made clear that future awards would be based strictly on merit. In the case of the National Institutes of Health, under the new leadership of Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, that would be a highly credible claim. And that, in itself, would influence the behavior of the universities, since their grant teams would be judged strictly on performance and capabilities, not diversity. Getting rid of extralegal DEI requirements doesn’t require extralegal anti-DEI requirements.
Our civil rights laws generally forbid discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, and sex, among other grounds. There is an argument that some university and private sector programs that limit participation based upon these factors violate those laws. There are various civil rights enforcement agencies in the federal government. This would be a lawful way to proceed, rather than an administrative shakedown attempted through attaching extralegal conditions to grants and contracts.
In addition to getting rid of the DEI infrastructure, the administration has been trying to erase identity-conscious activity and programming in the federal government generally, reportedly at least somewhat aided by AI. Hence web sites devoted to the Navajo code talkers and the Tuskegee Airmen disappeared (since restored) and the flags of Native American tribes were removed from the Phoenix VA hospital.
Racism and sexism are a large part of our history. Those who overcame it, and who served our country in important and heroic ways despite it, are a vital part of our story, and deserve to be remembered, celebrated, and honored.
Race or gender consciousness isn’t ipso facto bad. Affinity group identification is a natural human trait. In a pluralistic society, there should be ample room and acceptance of it. And public policy should take into account the more difficult entry path into the American meritocracy that many face.
The red line should be governmental preferences based upon identity. That violates and undermines the American creed of being an ever more expansive meritocracy.
The Native American tribal flags on display at the Phoenix VA hospital didn’t move any Native American to the head of any line. Instead, it was just a statement of respect for a segment of our citizenry who disproportionately serve despite historical shabby treatment.
Wokeism is divisive. Anti-wokeism should aspire not to be.
Reach Robb at robtrobb@gmail.com.