DEI = Didn’t Expect It

On his first day in office, which ironically coincided with Martin Luther King Day, the White House put out an executive order titled, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing,” which can be found on the homepage of whitehouse.gov. The order was a direct opposition to President Biden’s executive order, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government.”

The order reads, “terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all Diverse Equity Inclusive (DEI,) Diverse Equity Inclusive Accessible (DEIA) and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions, all ‘equity action plans,’ ‘equity’ actions,’ initiatives or programs, ‘equity-related’ grants or contracts; and all DEI or DEIA performance requirements for employees, contractors or grantees.”

The word ‘accessible’ describes people with disabilities and the word ‘equity’ appears in that paragraph more times than there are sentences. Yet, it’s the antithesis of it.

Following his inauguration, Trump placed all federal DEIA hires on paid leave with the plan to lay them off in September. His reasoning? Those hires did not earn their positions based on skill and merit but rather, gained their employment based solely on identity politics.

Did his administration perform an exhaustive assessment of the experience and knowledge of those hires? That information is not available, but it is unlikely. 

To add insult to injury, when a Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines plane collided on Jan. 29, Trump pulled no punches on implying the crash was due to a DEIA hire.

When delivering his comments on the tragedy, the president first asked for a moment of silence to recognize the lives lost but quickly shifted gears and went on ad nauseum about dismantling DEI and hiring only the most competent to work for the Federal Aviation Administration.

There were 67 passengers between both aircrafts and no survivors, but that didn’t stop the Trump administration from speculating about the most tragic U.S. air disaster since 9/11 and attributing the crash to inedptitude due to a DEI hire.

“When you are flying on an airplane with your loved ones – do you pray that your plane lands safely and gets you to your destination or do you pray that the pilot has a certain skin color?” House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt rhetorically asked a crowd of journalists at a White House press briefing on Feb. 1.

“They actually came out with a directive – too white,” Trump said and followed it with, “But we want the people that are competent.”

Is that to imply that those who are not white are incompetent?

The point of Biden’s order was to put a spotlight on work environments that were predominantly – if not entirely – white and were gravely lacking in diversity, a vestige of “affirmative action” which started during the height of the Civil Rights Movement and was repealed in 2023 by the U.S. Supreme Court.

This, coupled with Trump’s recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweeps, feels like an attempt to eradicate and disenfranchise Brown and Black people in this country. Especially when one considers New York is a sanctuary city, meaning it limits or denies compliance with federal immigration law. Yet, in late January, ICE agents arrested more than 100 undocumented individuals in NYC citing criminal records.

As a result, undocumented parents are scared to bring their children to school for fear of getting caught up in the raids.

Several offices, institutions and schools in our coverage area have held “Know Your Rights” forums and recently have changed the names of those forums so as not to be on the radar of ICE. Unfortunately, they cannot be mentioned because the people who run them and attend them are fearing for their lives and the lives of their neighbors. Where schools once were willing to openly talk to The Press, these recent matters have forced them to hide.

It's precarious out there as new presidential orders dismantle the progress this country has made over the decades.