#Division of Diversity Equity and Inclusion

[thepredatormedia]

The GOP party says “SAVE AMERICA BY VOTING FOR TRUMP!” Trump is an individual who hates immigrants. Does he not know that the very foundation of which the United States was founded on was made of immigrants.

The United States is a nation built on the contributions, resilience, and diversity of immigrants. From the early settlers to present-day innovators, immigrants have shaped our country's identity, driven its economic growth, and enriched its cultural fabric. Their pursuit of freedom and opportunity laid the very foundation of our democratic values. The strength and unity of the United States stem from its ability to embrace and integrate people from all walks of life, fostering a society grounded in inclusivity and progress.

So now, the question is, do we want to vote a person that is not only a convicted felon, which by the way, is truly unheard of because in the real world, people that has a felony record, cannot obtain security clearance for a government job little alone be allowed to hold the highest office of the United States, or vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Kamala Harris is the best candidate for leadership grounded in integrity, inclusivity, and progress. In contrast to Donald Trump's divisive rhetoric, disregard for democratic norms, and policy failures, Harris offers a vision focused on unity, justice, and restoring faith in governance. Trump's administration was marked by instability, social unrest, and international isolation, making him unfit to return to office. Harris's experience, dedication to equity, and steady leadership present the best path forward for America's future.

Donald Trump, as a convicted felon, poses a threat to the credibility of the presidency and the rule of law. Allowing a convicted felon to hold the highest office undermines the values of accountability and justice, sending a dangerous message that no consequences exist for violating the law. Harris, by contrast, offers a stable and principled vision for America’s future.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

As Gov. Greg Abbott tells state agencies that using diversity, equity and inclusion criteria in the hiring process is “illegal,” lawmakers in the legislature are pushing against the practice in Texas universities. State representative Carl Tepper, R-Lubbock, filed a bill to prohibit higher education institutions from funding or supporting diversity, equity and inclusion offices. HB 1006 also prohibits any efforts to formulate diversity “beyond what is necessary to uphold the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.” “We call it division, inequity and indoctrination. The DEI office name is a misnomer,” Tepper said. “We feel like it’s purposely being misused, to push a very woke very liberal agenda. You can have any belief you want, you can have any care about race relations or sexual relations or what have you. But we think that on the state dollar, and the state budget, that these universities, these state departments, departments of the state of Texas, should be neutral.”

Tepper’s alma mater Texas Tech University, now in his district, said its Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion works “to foster, affirm, celebrate, engage and strengthen inclusive communities.” They provide mentors to first-generation students, cultural centers for minority students and outlets for the campus to engage with the intercultural community.

Tepper said he hopes his bill will get rid of those outlets. He called Texas Tech’s Black Cultural Center “self-segregation.”

“I would do away with that. We have some wonderful facilities for everyone,” he said. “We want our students to learn together and play together, interact together, not as a segregated society. We want to see distinguished Black alumni, the portraits of distinguished Black alumni all over campus, not just in the Black Cultural Center.”

Some attorneys worry the recent restrictions of DEI policies are misguided. Jay Ellwanger, an attorney who specializes in employment and civil rights litigation at Ellwanger Law, said DEI policies are already prohibited from discrimination by federal law and may attract businesses wanting to create a diverse and competitive workforce. “The thing that struck me most in Governor Abbott’s memorandum to the state agencies was that I think he needed to go back to law school,” Ellwanger said. “Because the issues that were raised by this memorandum are impacted by areas of federal law that have been in place for almost 60 years.” The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recommends DEI initiatives as a best practice.

“EEOC makes it make extremely clear that you can’t have quotas, that you can’t purposely put a minority ahead of a nonminority in a DEI context if they’re not qualified,” Ellwanger said. “All the federal law says is that you can allow for other parts of someone’s makeup to go into that hiring equation, which again, allows for a company or state agency to hire more competitively, to get more viewpoints in the workplace, and just overall become more competitive.”

Rep. Tepper’s concerns are already shifting policy, however. Texas Tech University announced Wednesday they are eliminating DEI criteria. That decision comes after a Wall Street Journal report criticized the weight that some departments give to subjective diversity statements required in candidates’ applications.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Law Dork: Project 2025's plans for the Justice Department

Chris Geidner at Law Dork (07.08.2024):

Project 2025 is a frightening, authoritarian missive with Christian nationalism values at its core that aims to dismantle large swaths of the federal government and transform that which remains into a politicized right-wing machine. It opposes diversity as a value, aggressively so in its anti-woman, anti-Black and anti-brown, anti-immigrant, and anti-LBGTQ proposals. I have had Project 2025 on my mind for a while, but the truth is that I didn’t want to write about it until I could actually start giving it the attention it deserves. Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has released its final opinions of the term — including several making Project 2025 easier to implement — I have been able to start my work on this. Today, I start with a look through the Justice Department section, which is highlighted throughout with what I saw as key aspects. There will be much more, taking different forms, over the summer. Dig into the Mandate for Leadership with me. Pay attention. This matters — regardless of what Donald Trump might say.

1. This is not a plan that Trump can “torch,” “disavow,” or whatever Mike Allen is editing his Axios headline to say today. These are Trump’s people, up and down the line. Yes, it is true that no plans designed ahead of time would be implemented in precisely that way — but that is true of Trump’s own statements about his plans, too. He has no principles, so his plans are always flexible. That said, these are the plans being created for him by his people. The section is written by Gene Hamilton, a former senior official in the Trump administration whose name is all over litigation across the country today because he is the legal director of America First Legal. America First Legal is, in essence, the MAGA legal organization. It is run by Trump senior advisor Stephen Miller, despite his not being a lawyer, and Hamilton is the second-in-command. After Trump feigned ignorance about Project 2025 (leading to the Axios kerfuffle), Miller lapdoggingly followed on, insisting, “I have never been involved with Project 2025, not one word.” One, I maintain (and have long maintained) that Miller is the worst person who served in the Trump administration, so, forgive me if I believe him even less than I believe Trump.

2. The 28-page Justice Department section has a primary purpose of turning DOJ into an aggressive enforcer of the Trump agenda across the federal government and down into state and local governments. “Ensure the assignment of sufficient political appointees throughout the department,” the plan states outright, noting that the number of political appointees serving in past administrations — including “particularly” during the Trump administration — was not enough “to stop bad things from happening through proper management or to promote the President’s agenda.” The program explicitly questions how the new administration should relate to other branches, asserting that the administration should “use its independent resources and authorities to restrain the excesses of both the legislative and judicial branches.” Goals include ending independence of the Justice Department from the White House, ending the ability of divisions and offices within DOJ to exercise independent judgment, and ending respect for federalism where there is disagreement with Trump policies.

[...] 5. The plan calls for vigorous enforcement of the Comstock Act, including specifically calling for a “campaign” to prosecute attempts to mail abortion medication. This is explicit, specific, and there is no reason to be secure that this U.S. Supreme Court would block such a move. 6. The plan attacks diversity efforts as being backed by “an unholy alliance of special interests, radicals in government, and the far Left.” Yes, “unholy.” After describing “so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) offices” as “vehicles for unlawful discrimination, it calls for turning the Civil Rights Division into a bastardization of itself. It would, essentially, turn this pillar of the department into a governmental America First Legal.

Chris Geidner writes in Law Dork the harmful impacts that Project 2025 will do to the independence of the US DOJ from partisan political influence.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Winkfield Twyman, Jr.

Published: Nov 28, 2023

In a recent Equiano Project podcast featuring Helen Pluckrose, Helen talked about the perpetuation of racial essentialism and stereotype training. I feel comfortable referring to Helen by her first name in that I have known her since my days with Counterweight and given her early support for my book, Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America (co-authored with Jennifer Richmond).

Helen is the author of Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity—and Why This Harms Everybody (co-authored with James Lindsey). Cynical Theories may well be the most prophetic book about the dangers of racial dogma in the past decade. Helen’s interview landed well with respect to the dark underbelly of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training.

The most important fire bell in the night shared by Helen is that people write things they do not believe. The ability to write and publish a book is a privilege, and a blessing. Less than 1 percent of Americans have published a book. As one user on Reddit calculates, the number of humans who have published a manuscript is far less than 1 percent. “Well, 6 million books on Amazon, which includes a big chunk of the self published authors, divided by 7 billion people and you get .0086%. So a lot less than 1%.”

Why does writing falsehoods pose a problem for society? When one writes a lie in print, one is reducing the sacred trust between a reader and a writer. Reality becomes distorted for the writer who must suppress the truth and for the reader who doesn’t recognise reality on the printed page. For example, someone might write that incarceration of black men is the new Jim Crow. That assertion is a falsehood. Jim Crow was a legally mandated system of laws to segregate blacks and whites in the public sphere. Incarceration occurs because someone commits a crime. Incarceration does not equal Jim Crow. But once the lie is seized upon in public discourse, people begin to live in lies and to not see the truth; i.e. criminals are incarcerated because criminals commit crimes. 

I no longer believe anything authored by writer Michelle Alexander. She has abused her sacred opportunity as a privileged writer by bringing into the world a monumental falsehood, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. We have all suffered and been injured by her distortion of truth and reality. But for Alexander’s fictional argument, the fertile groundwork might not have been present for the rise of another falsehood, Black Lives Matter. Sadly, one falsehood leads to another falsehood and so it goes.

It is the duty of a published writer to write the truth. 

The next powerful insight from Helen was this idea that DEI training causes racial minorities to assess the level of racism as higher than it should be. Doesn’t this bad consequence ring true? Berry Gordy, the heroic founder of Motown in the year 1959, was once asked the reason for his success. Without hesitation, Gordy answered the reason was “focus.” This psychology applies to Gordy and, indeed, every ordinary human. If you focus on the positive, you will welcome the positive into your life. If you can only look at the negative, one invites the negative into one’s life. The divisive structure of DEI programs prompts participants to dredge up instances and examples of racism, no matter how remote or distant or of little consequence in one’s life.

If I were in a DEI program and the trainer asked me to name three examples of racism from my life when I felt oppressed, sure, I could search my memory banks and come up with three examples. Every black person could in the Western World. But having done so, the trainer has now implanted in my mind resentment and suspicion and ill-will towards my white colleagues. Such a poisonous outcome and for what purpose other than to raise race consciousness in the minds of work colleagues? It is a shame we enable these types of corrosive trainings. 

Finally, Helen channelled the opinions of many black employees who have had enough! Around 60% of the people who reached out to Counterweight for help were black. They pleaded with Helen to stop the racialising at work. Black employees want normal relations with their colleagues, not perpetual grievance struggles about how oppressed one is and how evil oppressor white colleagues are. We should listen to these black employees who don’t like anti-racism programs, Professor Ibram X. Kendi, and all of the manipulative slogan words in the office nowadays. 

Let people work together, lunch together and laugh together. DEI training should be discarded as an unworkable scheme that does more harm than good.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

“Their intentions aren’t exactly a secret. Government programs that attempt to redress decades of racist policies would be eliminated should Trump be elected to a second term. “As President Trump has said, all staff, offices, and initiatives connected to Biden’s un-American policy will be immediately terminated,” Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, told the news outlet.

A top Biden campaign official said Black voters needed to pay close attention to Trump’s plans.

Trump is “making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder,” said former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), one of the co-chairs of the Biden campaign. “It’s up to us to stop him.”

The warning comes as polling shows Biden’s level of support from Black voters has slipped. Democratic strategists have some fear about GOP plans to target Black men in the coming election. And they have major fears Black voters could stay home or vote for third-party candidates. Highlighting Trump and Miller’s plans could raise the stakes of the election for Black voters.

Miller, who pushed white nationalism and xenophobia in leaked emails, is at the heart of the effort. America First Legal, the right-wing nonprofit group Miller founded, has filed over a hundred lawsuits against “woke” corporations — like Disney, Mattel and Nike — that it alleges discriminate against white men. These complaints — many of which cite the 1964 Civil Rights Act — are laying the legal framework for Trump’s Justice Department to eliminate programs designed to counter racism, Axios notes.

Jasmine Harris, director of Black media for the Biden-Harris campaign, said the report should worry Black Americans.

“This report, in addition to all of the recent examples of shameless racism by Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans, serves as a warning to Black America: Donald Trump is a selfish and vindictive man who doesn’t give a damn about Black people,” Harris told HuffPost. “He will make our lives worse by using the very laws that the pioneers of the Civil Rights Movement fought for, against us.”

Miller’s group is not alone in the effort to roll back DEI initiatives.

The right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation crafted Project 2025, a sweeping playbook that lists policies and initiatives for the next conservative administration. The initiative is open about its goal to reshape the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. One of the mandates within the playbook is to “reorganize and refocus the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to serve as the vanguard for this return to lawfulness.”

Trump has affirmed to supporters that he aims make good on his promise to eliminate DEI. “We will terminate every diversity, equity and inclusion program across the entire federal government,” he told a crowd in Rochester, New Hampshire, in January.”

[fleshadept]

my university is shutting down their division of diversity equity and inclusion because texas now prohibits those offices from existing :))

[darkmaga-retard]

Molson Coors, best known for producing Coors and Miller Lite, has announced a swathe of changes to its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in an attempt to avoid the Bud Lite treatment.

The beer giant is the latest to reverse its woke corporate policies amid a growing campaign by conservative activist Robby Starbuck.

So far under his social media campaign, Starbuck has pushed changes at farmyard manufacturers John Deere and Tractor Supply. As momentum has grown in recent weeks, automobile giants Ford and Harley-Davidson have also scaled back DEI initiatives while home improvement outlet Lowe’s has also joined the trend.

Molson Coors announced the changes in a letter to employees shared by Starbuck on Monday, September 3.

DEI-based training programs have been scrapped, as have donations to “divisive events” such as Pride. Supplier diversity goals and compensation tied to DEI hiring targets are also gone, while employee resource groups will no longer focus on race or sexual orientation.

[leveloneandup]

Q&A With Christen Press: USWNT's World Cup Result, Inclusivity In Sports, Soccer Future Post-Knee Injury

Even though Press has been sidelined since June of 2022, she’s finding other ways to make an impact.

Not only is Press trying to change the status quo through re—inc, she’s working with Degree to promote safe and inclusive environments for girls of color on and off the field.

“We’re building a media division. The purpose is to reimagine the way women are seen in sports. The RE-CAP show is the first piece of media behind that. Obviously, Tobin and I have a unique perspective watching the World Cup for the first time in a decade. It’s a great opportunity to propel our initiative. For myself, personally, I’m not interested in being a broadcaster or analyst. That feels like a step backwards because what we’re creating is something authentic and personal where we can talk about sports at the intersection of progress and equity. The Degree campaign is at that intersection, similar to our RE-CAP show. So the plan is to build a media division that has increased inclusivity, diversity and perspective. It’s kinda the antithesis of your traditional broadcast show.”

“I think sports have given me a huge opportunity to use my platform for change. I think where we’re at as a society demands our attention to reimagine the status quo. In sports, there are so many infrastructures that are set up in a way that are not inclusive. We want to continue remaining the business of sports so we have more women and people of color in coaching roles, ownership groups, and positions where we can really make change.”

Source: The Spun by Sports Illustrated

[sordidamok]

It'd be easy to make a joke about Southern stereotypes. I started to and then didn't because there are a lot of people in Alabama who can't just pick up and leave.

[beardedmrbean]

A White history teacher accused a California teachers union of discriminating against him on the basis of his skin color and called the move "disgusting."

Isaac Newman, a teacher in the Elk Grove School District, on Friday filed a federal lawsuit against his local National Education Association affiliate for allegedly violating his Title VII civil rights. The suit alleged that the Elk Grove Education Association formed a seat on its executive board that was only available to candidates of color, meaning Newman wasn't eligible.

"It's disgusting, and that's why I'm suing," he told Fox News Digital in an interview.

"My union barred me from a leadership position simply because of the color of my skin," he said, discussing the suit. "I'm prohibited from running for a leadership position simply because of my race. This kind of racial litmus test is illegal, and it's un-American, and that's why I'm taking them to court." 

In 2023, Elk Grove Education Association officials voted to create a "BIPOC At-Large" seat on its executive board, a position limited only to people who "self-identify" as "African American (Black), Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawai’ian, Pacific Islander, Latino (including Puerto Rican), Asian, Arab, and Middle Eastern," according to the suit. 

"Plaintiff Isaac Newman is a white [EGEA] member who wants to run for union office to address the District’s recent adoption of what he believes to be aggressive and unnecessary Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) policies," reads the lawsuit, filed by The Fairness Center, a legal group focused on representing "those hurt by public-sector union officials."

The suit asked the court to "declare the BIPOC Position unlawful" and prevent the union "from creating any similar positions in the future where candidate eligibility is, in whole or in part, based on race." 

Newman said the alleged discrimination was "frightening," as was the prevalence of critical race theory in society's culture. 

"I'm actually really frightened for my children," he said, "when we look to a future where people are being taught [critical race theory]."

Newman believes that DEI ideology pushes hostile messages that focus on a person's skin color as opposed to their expertise and knowledge.

"The message there is that as a White teacher in a district that is very diverse, my students can't learn from me," he said. "It's abhorrent, and it's flatly wrong."

Newman told Fox News Digital that after disagreeing with the union pushing "aggressive" DEI agendas in the district, he decided to run for an executive seat to challenge the status quo. 

"I'm looking to see my district and union back away from this fantastically toxic ideology, back away from DEI and embrace merit and individuality," he said. "I'm hoping to see that other teachers, other people in similar organizations, will stand up." 

Newman said he was not alone in his opposition to DEI in school districts. 

"Most people who think like me are unwilling to speak up," he said. "There are a lot of teachers [who are silent], and it's not really a conservative or liberal thing."

"There are a lot of teachers who recognize that meritocracy, colorblindness are at the core of good teaching," Newman added. "What's shocking is in these DEI trainings, they actually call out colorblindness and meritocracy as racist myths. And of course, if you're dedicated to that, well, then you're going to have division, and you're going to have mediocrity." 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Elk Grove union for comment. 

"Teachers’ unions don’t get a pass from laws that prohibit racial discrimination," said Fairness Center President and general counsel Nathan McGrath. "The Civil Rights Act explicitly forbids unions from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin and from segregating members based on these attributes." 

[moonbeam-darling]

In Alabama, two harmful bills have recently passed Senate and the House. It has been sent to the governor where it is believed to be signed. These two bills are SB 129 and SB 1.

SB 129: This is an Anti Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion act. It will take away gender neutral bathrooms, strip state funding from DEI programs within public universities and schools, bans DEI events, and bans the teaching of "divisive concepts". This will greatly disrupt the education environment, especially since it is incredibly broad and can be used for basically anything that may be seen as "divisive". This will also lead to the loss of jobs, as those who work on the DEI departments will likely be fired.

SB 1: This bill completely hinders the ability for voters to vote through absentee ballot as it will make it so people who aid absentee voters, whether it be showing them how they work or helping them deliver it like paying for the gas to drive there, can be charged with a felony. This will greatly impact a large amount of people, especially university students who are not registered to vote where their university is.

They are trying to silence and erase us. They are trying to make it so our voices cannot be heard by hindering our ability to vote. We CANNOT let them do that. This will hurt POC, lgbtqia+, and every minority community.

They think by ignoring us that gets rid of us, but we are still here. Please vote and call your representatives. Make your voice be heard whether they like it or not.

If your state is taking similar actions, do not stand by.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Brian Bennett at Time:

President Biden drew a parallel on Friday between Donald Trump “and his MAGA Republican allies” and segregationists in the 1950s who tried to prevent Black and white Americans from going to school together.

Speaking to Black leaders gathered at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Biden described meeting with some of the nine people who faced racist jeers and abuse to attend Little Rock's Central High School in 1957, three years after the Supreme Court ruled segregation in education was unconstitutional.  Biden said the same animus that drove segregationists to try to block those students from attending high school with white students is now emerging in “other insidious forms” such as the efforts to gut affirmative action in college admissions and strip away corporate initiatives trying to bring more people of color into workplaces. “The Little Rock Nine were met with vitriol and violence. Today the vitriol comes in other insidious forms—an extreme movement led by my predecessor and his MAGA Republican allies, backed by an extreme Supreme Court that gutted affirmative action in college admissions. My predecessor and his extreme MAGA friends are now going after diversity, equity and inclusion all across America,” Biden said. “They want a country for some —not for all.” 

Biden joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the 1954 Brown v Board of Education decision that led to a wave of integration across the country. But even after that ruling, local segregationist leaders in many states flouted the court ruling. In an iconic showdown, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent 101st Airborne Division troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to protect Black students facing violent threats as they attended school. “My name’s Joe Biden and I’m a lifetime member of the NAACP,” he said, as he started his remarks. He then joked, “When I said that a little earlier to the president, he said, ‘Are your dues paid up?’ I got to check.” Biden’s speech was part of a push to engage the African American community at a moment when his approval ratings are sagging among young Black voters. Later on Friday, Biden met at the White House with presidents of the “Divine Nine,” the influential network of Black sororities and fraternities. “I know real power when I see it,” Biden said of the Divine Nine.

At a speech Friday commemorating the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, President Joe Biden (D) rightly draws a parallel between the modern-day MAGA cult and the segregationists of years past.

[republicansaredomesticterrorists]

Redneck Nazis.

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

A title in the Arthur children’s book series is facing a potential ban after a conservative activist claimed that it “damaged souls”.

On 12 July, Bruce Friedman, a member of the Clay County School District community in Florida, filed a challenge to Arthur’s Birthday, a 1989 children’s book by Marc Brown about a fictional brown aardvark whose birthday falls on the same day as another party of a different classmate.

At one point in the book, Arthur receives a glass bottle from Francine the monkey as a birthday present. The bottle has the words “Francine’s Spin the Bottle Game” printed on it.

According to the challenge, which The Daily Beast website published, the reason for Friedman’s ban request is to “protect children”.

“IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE TO DISCUSS ‘SPIN THE BOTTLE’ WITH ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILDREN,” he wrote in all capital letters. “THIS BOOK IS FOUND IN ALL/ALMOST ALL [DISTRICT SCHOOLS]!”

“‘SPIN THE BOTTLE’ NOT OKAY FOR K-5 KIDS,” Friedman added, still using all capital letters. In response to a question about what he believes might be the result of a student using the material, he wrote, “DAMAGED SOULS.”

In a statement to The Daily Beast, a district spokesperson, Terri Dennis, said the book was among 45 titles currently “pending oversight committee review”.

Friedman is the Florida chapter president of No Left Turn in Education, a rightwing group that campaigns against critical race theory. The group seeks to “use all forms of media to expose the radical indoctrination in K-12 education, its perpetrators, the resources and methods employed and the resulting harm it inflicts”, according to its website.

In a Facebook post in September 2020, the group compared public schools to “Pol Pot’s Cambodia”, referring to the former leader of Cambodia who perpetrated the mass genocide of over 2 million people.

Last December, Friedman said that he had compiled “a list of over 3,600 titles that I believe have concerning content [including] porn, critical race theory, social-emotional learning, [and] fluid gender,” Popular Information reported.

He told the outlet that he identified the titles by “scouring the internet” for books that have been challenged in other parts of the country.

The Florida Freedom to Read Project has pushed back against Friedman’s challenge to Arthur’s Birthday, saying: “The entire book is about being inclusive of all friends and not only inviting boys or girls (based on your gender) to your birthday party.”

In recent years, Florida’s public education system has become a divisive battleground for Republican lawmakers who have enacted a slew of laws targeting various minority and marginalized communities.

In addition to the “Don’t Say Gay” ban across all school grades and bans of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in public universities, Florida’s Governor, Ron DeSantis, has banned African American studies from high schools while the state’s Board of Education updated controversial new standards earlier this month to include the claim that some black people benefited from being enslaved.

[darkmaga-retard]

As an advanced civilization, I thought we were above the “Cult of Personality” and scorekeeping when it comes to selecting people for important positions based on their skin color, sex, and sexual orientation, especially in our politics. Perhaps we aren’t above any of these barriers that divide us as a nation.

I have to wonder: when we vote for our next President, will we bow to the divisive use of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (D.E.I.) over Meritocracy in our choice of President?

Yes, I’m talking about a Black, Asian-Indian Female, Kamala Harris, and a White, Male Donald Trump, both running for President of the United States.

Before addressing the exuberance over the possibility of our First Black Female President, shouldn’t we first ask whether Kamala Harris was a Joe Biden D.E.I. selection to be his Vice-Presidential running mate in the 2020 elections? I think his selection of Kamala was about the symbolism of selecting the first Black Female for V.P. and said nothing about her merit or competence.

Now that Kamala has leapfrogged Joe Biden as the Democrat Party’s nominee, I’m surprised People Magazine hasn’t devoted a special issue to Kamala’s Blackness and the possibility of matching Barack Obama’s accomplishment by being our nation’s first Black Female President.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Aaron Sibarium

Published: Jun 12, 2024

Congressional Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday that would eliminate all diversity, equity, and inclusion positions in the federal government and bar federal contractors from requiring DEI statements and training sessions.

The Dismantle DEI Act, introduced by Sen. J.D. Vance (R., Ohio) and Rep. Michael Cloud (R., Texas), would also bar federal grants from going to diversity initiatives, cutting off a key source of support for DEI programs in science and medicine. Other provisions would prevent accreditation agencies from requiring DEI in schools and bar national securities associations, like NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange, from instituting diversity requirements for corporate boards.

"The DEI agenda is a destructive ideology that breeds hatred and racial division," Vance told the Washington Free Beacon. "It has no place in our federal government or anywhere else in our society."

The bill is the most comprehensive legislative effort yet to excise DEI initiatives from the federal government and regulated entities. It offers a preview of how a Republican-controlled government, led by former president Donald Trump, could crack down on the controversial diversity programs that have exploded since 2020, fueled in part by President Joe Biden’s executive orders mandating a "whole-of-government" approach to  "racial equity."

From NASA and the National Science Foundation to the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S Army, all federal agencies require some form of diversity training. Mandatory workshops have drilled tax collectors on "cultural inclusion," military commanders on male pregnancy, and nuclear engineers on the "roots of white male culture," which—according to a training for Sandia National Laboratories, the Energy Department offshoot that designs America’s nuclear arsenal—include a "can-do attitude" and "hard work."

The Sandia training, conducted in 2019 by a group called "White Men As Full Diversity Partners," instructed nuclear weapons engineers to write "a short message" to "white women" and "people of color" about what they’d learned, according to screenshots of the training obtained by the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo.

The bill would ban these trainings and close the government DEI offices that conduct them. It would also prevent personnel laid off by those closures from being transferred or reassigned—a move meant to stop diversity initiatives from continuing under another name.

The prohibitions, which cover outside DEI consultants as well as government officials, would be enforced via a private right of action and could save the government billions of dollars. In 2023, the Biden administration spent over $16 million on diversity training for government employees alone. It requested an additional $83 million that year for DEI programs at the State Department and $9.2 million for the Office of Personnel Management’s Office of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility—one of the many bureaucracies the bill would eliminate.

A large chunk of savings would come from axing DEI grants made through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has a near monopoly on science funding in the United States. The agency hosts an entire webpage for "diversity related" grant opportunities—including several that prioritize applicants from "diverse backgrounds"—and has set aside billions of dollars for "minority institutions" and researchers with a "commitment to promoting diversity." All of those programs would be on the chopping block should Vance and Cloud’s bill pass.

Cosponsored by Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), Rick Scott (R., Fla.), Kevin Cramer (R., N.D.), Bill Cassidy (R., La.), and Eric Schmitt (R., Mo.) in the Senate, the Dismantle DEI Act has drawn support from prominent conservative advocacy groups, including Heritage Action and the Claremont Institute. At a time of ideological fracture on the right—debates about foreign aid and the proper role of government bitterly divided Trump’s primary challengers, for example, both in 2016 and 2024—Wednesday’s bill aims to provide a rallying cry most Republicans can get behind: DEI needs to die.

"It’s absurd to fund these divisive policies, especially using Americans' tax dollars," Cloud told the Free Beacon. "And it’s time for Congress to put an end to them once and for all."

The bill has the potential to free millions of Americans—both in government and the private sector—from the sort of divisive diversity trainings that have become an anti-woke bête noire. Its most consequential provisions might be those governing federal contractors, which employ up to a fifth of the American workforce and include companies like Pfizer, Microsoft, Lockheed Martin, and Verizon.

Each firm runs a suite of DEI programs, from race-based fellowships and "resource groups" to mandatory workshops, that have drawn public outcry and in some cases sparked legal challenges. By targeting these contractors, the bill could purge DEI from large swaths of the U.S. economy without directly outlawing the practice in private institutions.

Targeting accreditors, meanwhile, could remove a key driver of DEI programs in professional schools. The American Bar Association and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, which accredit all law and medical schools in the United States and derive much of their power from the U.S. Department of Education, have both made DEI material—including course content on "anti-racism"—a requirement for accreditation, over the objections of some of their members.

Those mandates have spurred a handful of law schools to require entire classes on critical race theory. The transformation has been even more acute at medical schools, which, per accreditation guidelines released in 2022, should teach students to identify "systems of power, privilege, and oppression."

Yale Medical School now requires residents to take a mandatory course on "advocacy" and "health justice," for example. And at the University of California, Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine, students must complete a "health equity" course that promotes police abolition, describes weight loss as a "hopeless endeavor," and states that "biomedical knowledge" is "just one way" of understanding "health and the world."

While the bill wouldn’t outlaw these lessons directly, it would prevent accreditors recognized by the Education Department from mandating them. Such agencies, whose seal of approval is a prerequisite for federal funds, would need to certify that their accreditation standards do not "require, encourage, or coerce any institution of higher education to engage in prohibited" DEI practices, according to the text of the bill. They would also need to certify that they do not "assess the commitment of an institution of higher education to any ideology, belief, or viewpoint" as part of the accreditation process.

Other, more technical provisions would eliminate diversity quotas at federal agencies and end a racially targeted grant program in the Department of Health and Human Services.

Unlike past GOP efforts to limit DEI, which have focused on the content of diversity trainings and the use of explicit racial preferences, the bill introduced Wednesday would also ax requirements related to data collection. It repeals a law that forces the armed services to keep tabs on the racial breakdown of officers, for example, as well as a law that requires intelligence officials to collect data on the "diversity and inclusion efforts" of their agencies.

Though officials could still collect the data if they so choose, the bill would mark a small step toward colorblindness in a country where racial record-keeping—required by many federal agencies—has long been the norm.

"DEI destroys competence while making Americans into enemies," said Arthur Milikh, the director of the Claremont Institute Center for the American Way of Life, one of the conservative groups supporting the bill. "This ideology must be fought, and its offices removed."

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I don't care who raised it. If the Dems raised it, I'd support it. DEI is absolute poison.