Trump Takes His Biggest Step Yet Toward Restoring Meritocracy
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Measured in Trump time, it took them eons to get around to it, but the White House has finally taken the most important step it can to restore meritocracy to American society: eliminating disparate-impact theory from civil rights analysis and enforcement.
Disparate-impact theory holds that if a neutral, colorblind standard of achievement or behavior has a disproportionately negative effect on underrepresented minorities (overwhelmingly, on blacks), it violates civil rights laws. It has been used to invalidate literacy and numeracy standards for police officers and firemen, cognitive skills and basic knowledge tests for teachers, the use of SATs in college admissions, the use of grades for medical licensing exams, credit-based mortgage lending, the ability to discipline insubordinate students, and criminal background checks for employees and renters. It has been used to eliminate prosecution for a large range of crimes, including shoplifting, turnstile jumping, and resisting arrest; to end police tactics such as proactive stops (otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk); and to purge safety technologies like ShotSpotter and speeding cameras from police departments.
In none of those cases has it ever been demonstrated that the disfavored standard was implemented to exclude blacks or other minorities from a position, opportunity, or right. The genius (if a diabolical one) of disparate-impact theory was that it obviated any need to show discriminatory intent on the part of a targeted employer or institution. Discrimination was inferred simply by the effect of the colorblind standard.
Disparate-impact theory preserved the hegemony of the civil rights regime long after the original impetus for that regime had all but disappeared. One would be hard-pressed today to find any mainstream institution that discriminates against blacks in admissions, hiring, or promotion. The reality, in fact, is the opposite: every mainstream institution is desperate to hire and promote as many remotely qualified blacks as possible; it is white males who are disfavored and excluded from positions based on their skin color.
If those black-welcoming institutions continued to employ a single standard of achievement, and that standard disqualified blacks at a disproportionate rate, civil rights enforcers would declare that they had uncovered yet another redoubt of white supremacy. The diversity bureaucracy in universities and the corporate world would send out the message that blacks continue to face discrimination at every turn and that they should take refuge in a victim identity.
Disparate-impact analysis was the linchpin of the “systemic racism” argument, since the only present-day proof of racism in American society is the underrepresentation of blacks in the professions and their overrepresentation in the criminal-justice system.
Meantime, the real cause of disparate impact—the yawning academic skills and crime gaps—was kept assiduously offstage.
Now all that may be changing. The presidential Executive Order of April 23, 2025 , “Restoring Equality of Opportunity and Meritocracy,” sets out the policy of the United States to “eliminate the use of disparate-impact liability in all contexts to the maximum degree possible.”
To that end, it starts the process of repealing disparate-impact regulations accreted to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by subsequent administrations and requires the cataloguing of state laws that impose disparate-impact liability, among other actions.
Most momentously for law enforcement, the executive order initiates the review of federal consent decrees that rely on disparate-impact analysis (i.e., almost all of them), with the implied goal of dissolving those decrees. (A consent decree is a negotiated settlement, overseen by a judge and his representative, binding a government entity to an elaborate set of reforms.) Dissolving such decrees will not only liberate police departments from a costly yoke of superfluous red tape but will also defund the federal monitor racket, whereby monitors earn millions of dollars declaring for years on end that the overseen police department has yet to comply punctiliously with an average of 200 or so mandated reforms, often regarding paperwork.
Left-wing groups are understandably up in arms . They charge the administration with a “fundamental shift in legal philosophy.” That is true, but it was disparate-impact theory itself that constituted a radical departure from the premises of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. President Donald Trump merely restores the 1964 law to its original understanding. That pioneering legislation banned intentional discrimination only; disparate-impact theory was a judicial amendment made six years later in response to how, even in 1971 , finding invidious intentional discrimination was becoming too difficult to satisfy the advocates.
The Left complains as well that Trump’s’ executive order embraces a “formalist, colorblind conception of equality.” Yes—and so does the Constitution.
President Trump and his Cabinet must move quickly. His executive order can be reversed by a hostile successor administration; the disparate-impact regime can be resurrected with another flip of the presidential pen. The White House needs to persuade Congress to clarify that civil rights mean freedom from discrimination—not the legitimization of “reverse discrimination.” Congress must amend 1960s-era statutes to confirm explicitly their original colorblind intent.
Such a process of congressional clarification will trigger a long overdue debate: Is the United States still disfigured by systemic racism that requires the dismantling of meritocratic standards? Or are we ready to live in a nation where we can be confident that the doctor who walks through an emergency room door is there because of his medical expertise, not his race?
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The days of the government engaging in pernicious racism with crackpot theories are ending. Disparate Impact has been a blight on our country for too long.
Meritocracy under the Project 2025 Trump administration has meant dismissing qualified women and people of color in favor of under-qualified white sycophants.
Trump didn’t have anything to do with it. I saw the video of him signing it. He was hearing about it for the first time and clearly didn’t understand it until the Project 2025 drone dropped a few key white supremacist trigger phrases and Trump dutifully signed the order - which won’t actually do anything, by the way.
Yes, because committed racists will do whatever it takes to make it look on paper like they aren’t the bigots they actually are. Gotta preserve and protect that white hegemony, you know.
Lol.
because committed racists will do whatever it takes to make it look on paper like they aren’t the bigots they actually are
No, committed racists support policies that mandate discrimination on the basis of race, like disparate impact.
It's funny to see so many progressives stoop to murdering logic to pretend they aren't racists. . In the bizzaro progressive world, if you support policies that make racial discrimination illegal, you are a racist. If you support policies that mandate racial discrimination, you're not a racist.
Of course, disparate impact itself is a theory only racists could think of in the first place. It comes from a racilist worldview where race explains everything. It only makes sense if your whole worldview is dominated by race.
So, it is DEI the left has been harping about for several years now.
No difference than if it were the other way around.
Um, yeah, ok. You evidently don’t understand - or don’t want to understand - why we have civil rights laws and programs that fall under the umbrella term “DEI.” So, let me help, if you are willing to have an open mind about it.
Very briefly, DEI is not about selecting unqualified women or people of color. It is about casting a wider net to actively look for women or people of color who are qualified, but historically have been passed over in favor of lesser qualified white males. This process does not exclude qualified white males. It just forces them to actually compete.
So, it is very different than what you seem to have in mind.
Under disparate impact, the only explanation why a white sprinter has not represented the US in the Olympics in the 100 meter dash for over 50 years is the racism of the USOC. Even though the USOC treats everyone the same in how they award spots on the team and there is no evidence they intentionally discriminate against white people, they can be found legally guilty of racial discrimination because their selection process doesn't result in enough white sprinters making the team. That's the rationale government has been applying to businesses, schools, contracting. Even the most fair, least racist methods of selection can be held racist if they don't produce results with the "correct"racial balance.
Your outlook depends entirely on the belief that 400 years of racial prejudice (and actions) have not had a negative effect on people of color. It is ridiculous.
You are correct. it is ridiculous to blame something that ended 160 years ago for what the left is trying to do today, If you use skin color as a criteria for anything, you are by definition a racist.
No. It doesn't.
I don't think what happened 400 years ago really affects how anyone performs in schools today. Do you think "people of color" are the only people whose ancestors have suffered horribly in the last 400 years? What about "people of color" who immigrated as adults? What is your justification to support the government racially discriminating on their behalf?
No, that’s not how it works. What you’re describing would be absurd. The law doesn’t operate that way.
Disparate Impact is an actual discrimination claim made by plaintiffs in civil court. It deals with policies and practices that are neutral on the surface but have a disproportionate impact on protected groups. The case law has developed and been reaffirmed for over 50 years. It’s something the libs invented a few years ago.
To establish Disparate Impact, plaintiffs must establish that there is a specific policy or practice that is causing actual harm to a protected group, the disparate impact is significant (like 80% of the group is excluded), there is actual causation (I.e., the policy directly causes the harm), and the policy is not necessary to the position, business, or whatever it is we’re talking about.
So, to look at your example, requiring that the sprinters actually be the quickest runners is clearly necessary to a winning sprint team. Requiring them to be a certain age or height, while apparently neutral, has no bearing on their time in the 100 meter dash. But if the requirement disproportionally excluded people in a protected group who could do the race in a winning time, but weren’t the prescribed age or weight, it could be discriminatory.
Typo correction. It's not something that was just invented.
Disparate Impact was designed to fight the causes of the other Trumpian bugaboo, Critical Race Theory.
Race & ethnicity must be incidental and never essential.
It's difficult to argue with a straight face that standards should be lowered because the people who don't measure up are disproportionately of one common characteristic or another. So in that sense, this is a very good development.
However you do have to wonder when we start to hold schools accountable for creating graduates with highly disparate abilities. The statistics on this are overwhelming, but it's the elephant in the room nobody will talk about.
I think making schools guarantors of the loans they give the students would help tremendously. With their money on the line, they'd make sure they were only accepting and preparing students capable of repaying student loans. Right now, all the incentives are for the schools to accept students and charge them as much as possible and not really worry about what happens after.
And in the public school system pay and increases should be based on graduation rate and competency of the students, if they can't read teachers don't get a raise or a promotion ever, time to hold the schools and administrations responsible for their failures.
I was thinking more about public schools and potential liability claims when it's statistically established that they educate minority kids to lower standards.
I'm guessing that's not plausible. Half of them are struggling to stay open as it is.
I wonder about tying approval of student loan amounts to the field of study. If you're majoring in engineering or biochemistry, you'll be able to pay off more loan than if you're majoring in elementary education or theology.
Well yeah. We've given them a blank check.
I agree with accountability, which doesn't exist in any real fashion currently, but I'm not sure how to best improve that.