DEI Comes and Goes in Employment
Brent E. Zepke, Esq.
President Joseph Biden in Executive Order 13985 ordered that DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, be used by the Federal Government.
How would DEI affect employment?
The optimal way to understand the impact of DEI in employment is to start with the framework of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (CRA) prohibits discrimination based on a person’s immutable characteristics, meaning those that are unchanging over time, i.e., at birth. Title VII prohibits discrimination in employment based on these characteristics, which were defined as race, color, religion, and national origin: sex was added in 1972. The CRA also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce the CRA.
Congress protected equal employment opportunities for all.
EO 11246
President Lyndon Johnson, in 1965, avoided Congress by issuing Executive Order (EO) 11246 requiring federal contractors to create Affirmative Action Programs (AAPs) to discriminate in employment based on the same characteristics listed in the CRA. The EO was not enforced by the EEOC but by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL).
The result was that Title VII’s requiring employers not to discriminate in employment opportunities lasted less than a year, before EO 11246 required federal contractors to discriminate by using affirmative action.
A personal example of this application occurred in 1969 when the head of the Knoxville, Tennessee Post Office told my brother Barry, “You are the first person to ever make a perfect 100 score on our entrance exam, but we are not hiring you because others have a higher score.”
When Barry asked, “How is that possible,” the manager responded “Others scored higher because we give ten points to minorities and women” so they can score higher than 100.
How has the Post Office performed over the years?
EO 13985 was not passed to ensure affirmative action. EO 11246 provided for affirmative action for federal contractors.
EO 13985
President Joseph Biden (D), on his first day in office (Jan 20, 2021), signed EO 13985 for “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Undeserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” which was given the name “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI).
EO 13985 required nearly every federal agency and entity to submit an “Equity Action Plan” to detail how they would further DEI’s infiltration of the Federal Government.
DEI could be considered Affirmative Action (AA) on steroids in that it not only attempts to change employers, but also to change employees by making multiculturism a strategic imperative to change organizational cultures. One might say it is a movement to “globalize” our culture.
The supporters of DEI say it is a movement to integrate work into their lifestyles, rather than their life tyles into work. This requires that the various cultures practiced away from work be permitted at work.
They say that Diversity is creating a culture where everyone’s values are respected, and everyone has a sense of belonging, even the LGBTQ.
That Equity is addressing cultural barriers that are preventing marginalized employees from being encouraged to express their perspectives.
And that Inclusion is adapting an awareness of flexible work arrangements and environments.
EO 13985’s objective could be summarized as forcing everyone to comply with others’ particular proclivities.
DEI: an example
President Biden demonstrated DEI when he appointed General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., as the Joint Chiefs Chairman effective October 1, 2023.
In August 2020, President Donald Trump appointed General Brown as the Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, which made him the first African American to lead a branch of U.S. Armed Forces.
However, after assuming this office in August 2020, the general made his priorities clear: diversity first, effectiveness second.
In January2021, The Washington Post reported that Brown’s belief in “managing” diversity extended to altering standards in recruitment to achieve demographic goals, including reducing reliance on standardized testing because he believed it created barriers to diversity.
In a PBS interview in July 2021, Brown said that “the beauty of George Floyd’s” death was that it forced the Air Force to take a “hard look at ourselves.”
During his tenure, social media activity of Air Force recruits was screened for “extremist tendencies,” which raised concerns about weeding out conservatives. Meritocratic standards were diminished in favor of racial quotas, including modifying pilot training prerequisites to boost racial diversity at the expense of flight experience.
President Biden appointed Brown as the Joint Chiefs Chairman, effective October 1, 2023.
Under Brown’s tenure, the U.S. military faced its worst recruitment numbers in decades. In 2023 the Army missed its recruitment goals by over 15,000 and the Air Force missed by 3,000. Many cited the “woke” movement as a deterrent.
The Reagan Institute reported that trust in the military plummeted from 70% in 2018 to 51% in 2022.
Miliary readiness suffered as training mishaps and operational failures surged, with the Army experiencing its highest rate of deadly aviation accidents in over a decade.
Crime rates among service members reflected an erosion of discipline. For example, the Navy experienced a 13% spike in reported sexual assault cases during 2022 and 2023.
EO 14151
President Trump, in EO 14151, reversed President Biden’s EO 13985 and ended DEI in the Federal Government, which included terminating all “equity action plans.”
For example, President Trump is requiring that employees integrate their lifestyles into work, rather than integrate work into their lifestyles. Many federal agencies and companies, such as Meta, are requiring the same behavior.
EO 14173
President Trump’s EO 14173 reverses President Biden’s EO 11246 and ends 60 years of unequal treatment under affirmative action.
Result
President Trump’s EOs 14151 and 14173 ended the attempts to create unequal employment with DEI, and to once again prohibit discrimination in compliance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
If we were really to have equality we'd start with our public school system and the schools would 1) have teachers hired on the basis of their competency not ethnicity, and 2, demand the best from all students regardless of their ethnicity. Right now DEI is nothing but ideological b.s. from what Thomas Sowell brilliantly called “the anointed” class in his book “The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as the Basis for Social Policy.” And that book should be required reading for any school teacher or school board member.
It is a fallacy that diversity intrinsically strengthens our society. The assumption that, in and of itself, diversity is by it's very nature good and enriching to our society and therefore it should be embraced in unlimited quantities is contrary to experience. An immigrant population of small size that is assimilable can benefit and enrich society. Hoards of barbarous invaders sequestered into communities that share neither language or culture with the rest of America is destructive to the stability and prosperity of our culture. It dilutes the cohesion that unites a people with a shared will to defend the status quo and renders an easily defeated foe. This is plausibly the intention of mass immigration and the effort to legitimize this population through DEI initiatives. Just as iron can be strengthened by the addition of a small amount of carbon to form carbon steel, the addition of too much carbon and the alloy is weakened. What we have here is closer to a lump of coal than to steel alloy.