DEI, CRT and other Boogeymen
Here is my very limited database so far: https://tinyurl.com/DEICRTAA, and I haven’t kept it up to date. Here is the piece by Joseph Health on substack that made me decide to do this. I might add that I have a mantra I would propose we all say regularly: within social group and between social group similaries and differences. Repeat, often.
As I argued in my 2019 needs-based partial theory of human injustice: “This theory of human injustice contends that we must engage in systematic analysis of within-social-group and between-social-group similarities and differences about the sources, mechanisms, and nature of human injustice.”
One of the major faults in the way higher education and our society in general have not properly discussed these issues, is that we have engaged in what I and many others have called the privileging of privilege discourse and diversity dialogue over any attention whatsover, in the curriculm of most schools of social work at least, to the question of basic human needs. Speaking as a lifelong anti-racist activist—my record on anti-sexism is a bit spotty—I content this is not how to fight racism.
Saying the mantra I propose is one valuable way to avoid some of the intellectual and political errors of how DEI policies are often implemented and how CRT theories are employed, including as substitutes for more fundammentally analysing the nature of institutional racism and sexism and the kinds of affirmative action which are still required to dismantle and transform unjust policies and practices, until such time as no such race and gender specific preferences, either formal or inforal, are required within our constitutional democracy, one rooted in the British common law principle known as the equity doctrine.
Per this doctrine, when the state discriminates against a social group over time, it has the obligation to take remedial measures such as what we now call “affirmative action.” Affirmative action as a conceptual phrase which was first formulated by a group of progressive social workers in Chicago in the late 1940s, including the late Charles Garvin (my longtime mentor) and the recently deceased Paul Abels, who with his wife Sonia Abels edited a special issue of the journal Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping on Social Justice to which I contributed a piece. Later, it was the subject of a Presidential executive order. But we as a nation never properly debated and legislated this issue, preferring to rely instead on what I think were proper legal decisions by the courts, on how to interpret anti-discrmination laws. We need to have this debate again. I advocate for actual legislation or constitutional amendments in the various states, that would institute various forms of race and gender based affirmatative action but with a sunset clause; indicating they would end when the historical wrongs had been righted and we had achieved something close to equal opportunity. In this way, those affirmative action principles would be consistent with the equal protection clauses of the equal protection clause. This is not a time to shut up and avoid addressing these issues. This beat will cover the issue and may inform a later essay.
4/24/25: EEOC is being weaponized to do surveys of faculty asking if they are Jewish and have been subject to discrmination.
3/28/25 Today I wrote a 2200 word essay Saving and Transforming DEI, before I knew about the decision of UM to dismantle its centralized DEI effort (see this report) and see this 12/24 action about the Regent’s considering such a move and the removal of the Columbia Interim President. Other universities are pushing back. The DHHS claims to be concerned about antisemitism.
4/3/25: Today, Trump is threatening to cut funds to all public schools who don’t end or reviese their DEI programs, per NYTimes (gift).
LA Times journalist Harry Litman, who couragenously resigned from the paper in December, explains the attack on DEI in the legal profession.
To understand Trump’s executive orders (plural) on DEI, see the order itself, titled Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing, dated 1/20/25.
Trump also rescinded these Biden orders via a this executive order:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14148
Theese included (from a section of above)
DEI
[edit]
In addition to the retraction of DEI policies in the federal government, the order rescinded the following executive orders:[2]
Executive Order 13985 of January 20, 2021 (Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government);
Executive Order 13993 of January 20, 2021 (Revision of Civil Immigration Enforcement Policies and Priorities);
Executive Order 14031 of May 28, 2021 (Advancing Equity, Justice, and Opportunity for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders);
Executive Order 14075 of June 15, 2022 (Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals) among many others.
Executive Order 14020 of March 8, 2021 (Establishment of the White House Gender Policy Council);
Executive Order 13988 of January 20, 2021 (Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation).
Executive Order 14020 was rescinded twice, once in this executive order and then again in Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government. On the same day, the new President signed an executive order titled, "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government".
Here is a list of all Trump 47 Executive Orders. The include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14151, the above noted Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing.
Related orders include https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_14168, Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs And Preferencing, which will have the impact of rolling back all previous rules and regulations which protected LGBTQ+ individuals against gender identity and expression discrmination by linking it to unlawful sex discrimination.
Also, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/reforming-the-federal-hiring-process-and-restoring-merit-to-government-service, REFORMING THE FEDERAL HIRING PROCESS AND RESTORING MERIT TO GOVERNMENT SERVICE. MD: This eliminates a non-program: neither the previous affirmative action programs nor the DEI programs provided preference for hiring based on gender identity. Some progress had been made towards extending non-discrimination provisions. The Equality Act, which passed the House but which did not become law, would have outlawed discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Here was the Bill. According to Wikipedia, the bill did not pass the Senate in either 2019 (Trump said he would veto it) or 2021 (“At a 2021 Senate hearing for the Equality Act, 16-year-old Stella Keating became the first transgender teenager to testify before Congress saying, "Right now, I could be denied medical care or be evicted for simply being transgender in many states. ... What if I'm offered a dream job in a state where I can be discriminated against? Even if my employer is supportive, I still have to live somewhere. Eat in restaurants. Have a doctor", she added. "This is the United States of America. The country that I love. Every young person ... regardless of who they are or who they love, should be able to be excited about their future."[112]”
Also, see this from the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. One of them prohibits contracting with companies unless they “do not operate any programs promoting DEI that violate any applicable Federal anti-discrimination laws.” Here is a PDF of their joint report.