Trump rolls back bedrock civil rights measure in sweeping anti-DEI push
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Trump issued a sweeping executive order revoking decades of diversity and affirmative action practices in federal government.
Why it matters: This takes the current pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion into the next stratosphere — abolishing decades of government standards on diversity and equal opportunity, and seeking to crack down on the same in the private sector.
Zoom out: Trump's order revokes one that President Johnson signed on September 24, 1965, more than two years after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
LBJ's order gave the Secretary of Labor the authority to ensure equal opportunity for people of color and women in federal contractors' recruitment, hiring, training and other employment practices.
It required federal contractors to refrain from employment discrimination and take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity "based on race, color, religion, and national origin."
The order came more than a year after Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and just months after he signed the Voting Rights Act following violent attacks on voting rights advocates in Selma, Ala.
The intrigue: The reversal comes after five GOP presidents—including Trump during his first term—kept the Johnson executive order in place, while others expanded it through amendments.
Segregationists during Johnson's time opposed the executive order.
Conservatives since have voiced opposition to it, over claims it forced federal contractors to adopt a "quota system" for employees.
It also comes just as Chuck Robbins, the CEO of Cisco and head of the influential Business Roundtable, defended the value of DEI for corporate America in an Axios interview in Davos.
What they're saying: Civil rights advocates were anticipating this move. Rev. William Barber of the Repairers of the Breach told Axios beforehand that Johnson's executive order was needed to fight discrimination of that era and is still needed today.
"It would significantly erode a civil rights enforcement tool that has been essential, in particular for women's progress," Jocelyn Frye, president of the advocacy group National Partnership for Women & Families, told Axios before Trump's order was issued.
"It sends a message and gives a green light to contractors that nobody is watching."
Zoom in: Trump's order directs all "executive departments and agencies (agencies) to terminate all discriminatory and illegal preferences, mandates, policies, programs, activities, guidance, regulations, enforcement actions, consent orders, and requirements."
And it extends out to the private sector: "I further order all agencies to enforce our longstanding civil-rights laws and to combat illegal private-sector DEI preferences, mandates, policies, programs."
"The Federal Government is charged with enforcing our civil-rights laws. The purpose of this order is to ensure that it does so by ending illegal preferences and discrimination."
It goes a step further and orders federal agencies to compile lists of public companies, universities and large foundations for investigations and possible civil action over their DEI programs.
Between the lines: Close Trump allies want to dramatically change the government's interpretation of Civil Rights-era laws to focus on "anti-white racism" rather than discrimination against people of color, Axios' Alex Thompson has reported.
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kudos to trump for stopping the government from engaging in systematic racism. A huge day for civil rights
Not just racism, but sexual orientation discrimination
For instance, two guys, one white and gay, the other, white and straight, apply for the same position.
The white, straight guy is better qualified than the gay guy, but because there are no gay guys in the department, the gay guy gets hired for "equity" sake.
Trump did the right thing.
Yep. Just enforce the Civil Rights Law as written. The law forbids discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
That it was corrupted by an activist Court that dishonestly turned its meaning on it's head and allowed discrimination has been a stain on our country for decades at this point.
Utter fantasy bullshit. In these moronic "what if's" there's ALWAYS a better qualified white guy who didn't get the job apparently, but that's just pure fantasy invented by those who believe they're getting discriminated against.
What we've had in the past and the reason for these rules in the first place was because of the "good old boy" white male Christian doing the hiring ALWAYS giving the job to another white male Christian. That was WHITE MALE CHRISTIAN affirmative action that went unchecked for nearly two centuries of our nation's history.
When that FACT was exposed, we as a nation took action, affirmative action, to make sure that others were being included in the workplace, college admissions and government jobs. I'm all for having the debate as to whether it's still needed, but to claim current affirmative action is "racist" doesn't tell the whole story without having admitted that "YES! My country has a history steeped in racism and whites; mostly white conservative Christians, have potentially done irreparable harm to Americans of other races and cultures for centuries and now we have to deal with the legacy of that systemic racism in our society."
White conservative Christians suggest just forgetting those facts and that any of that happened and want to just move on because, of course they would! They're the perpetrator of a crime against their fellow man and now they're saying "Hey! Okay, so I mistreated you for a long time, can't we all just get along now?" They don't want to pay any price for their centuries of systemic crimes, they reject the premise of reparations, they whine and bitch like little babies about affirmative action being discriminatory against them because they're so fucking soft and weak apparently, they can't fucking compete against a minority that got a hand up.
But, alas, with Trump in office, the racists Golden God, they will bow down and suck the purple off that tiny little Trumpshroom to prove they're loyal members of the white Christian fascist nation that is intentionally pushing the world towards their hoped for Armagedón where they believe their God will wipe out all their enemies and let them rule over the earth as one white Christian nation superpower. That's what we are helping usher in all so we can claim we stopped that supposedly less qualified gay guy from getting a job, what amazing fucking heroes. /s
Wow...that was one hell of a rant that absolutely missed the point and had to go on a racist hole in the ground.
You can change "white" with black, brown, Asian, etc, whatever, and the example remains true.
Maybe get away from "everything is racist" and you will see a little clearer.
BTW, affirmative action was actually a racist idea putting minorities less qualified over qualified people, no matter the race.
Asians took the biggest hit with the racism of AA.
Now we will be back to the private sector engaging in systematic racism.
How so? Trump's EO only covers federal offices, not private businesses.
The most qualified person should get the Job or contract, no more giving preference to idiots based on non-performance criteria. Female is not a qualification; skin color is not a qualification. The only qualification should be the best able to perform the work.
I agree. So, how do we keep those who are doing the hiring from discriminating against the "more qualified" applicant simply because they don't like gay people? What if that gay person was the more qualified applicant? How can we prove they're more qualified and not being chosen just because they check some racial or gender box for the one doing the hiring unless we remove the in-person interview out of the process, mask the name and any identifying characteristics listed in the application and hire just based purely on the numbers, some raw data calculation better done by an unbiased computer.
But that's not actually what Trump and his loyal MAGAites want. They want to bring back discriminatory hiring, but just in their favor because they believe they're now the ones being discriminated against. Of course they're not actually being discriminated against, they're being passed over because they're not qualified or educated enough for the majority of the jobs in the job market now, but that fact is too heavy for the weak whiny little white conservative Christians to accept so they can only blame others for all their problems. In their clearly damaged brains, they essentially believe it was the brown skinned gay undocumented transgender liberals (or any combination of) that 'took their jobs!' and want to use their child's bathroom and turn their kids gay! It's 24/7 fear fear fear on rightwing media and they ginned up the fear to such heights this time they got their fascist dictator back in office and will do anything, even attack out capital as we saw last time, to keep him in power.
"The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
- some judge guy
This is ALL this is about.
Anti white racism…..LMAO, those white folks suffer so much racism how do they deal with it. Thank goodness a savior like Trump has come to their rescue. No more back of the bus or being refused a job cuz their white, back to the best schools… YEAH MAGA.