OPINION:
By signing several executive orders slashing the federal government’s parasitic diversity, equity and inclusion programs and standards last week, President Trump kick-started a much-needed restoration of American ingenuity, strength and excellence.
DEI has failed the nation time and again. It has undermined our military strength, governmental efficiency and educational quality and sowed seeds of division, compromised standards and pushed a radical anti-American ideology.
President Biden and the left’s integration of DEI into the military and the executive agencies was a massive mistake. Coercive and corrosive, these discriminatory practices weakened our national defense, unfairly punished hardworking Americans and put our citizens’ safety at risk in the name of advancing superficial forms of diversity and equity.
As the president accurately summarized, DEI standards and procedures are “dangerous, demeaning and immoral.”
His executive orders aim to protect all Americans from “discriminatory and illegal” hiring preferences and workplace policies that impose artificial and arbitrary forms of diversity on the federal workforce. Mr. Trump’s actions will attempt to restore merit-based opportunity and, as a result, return proficiency, excellence and skill to the government.
The president specifically ordered the closure of all federal DEI and “environmental justice” offices, moved all DEI employees to paid leave, terminated all discriminatory programs and mandates, and required agency heads to compile reports on how the previous administration’s DEI policies cost American taxpayers financially and socially.
Mr. Trump also rightfully instituted federal hiring reforms, eliminating inefficient and wasteful DEI standards that prioritize diversity over competence.
Similarly, his orders on restoring excellence in the military and transportation sector ensure that the safety of the American people is the top priority and that social engineering has no place in institutions meant to protect our citizens from harm.
The demise of DEI is long overdue. These tyrannical programs target the heart of what has made this country great for centuries: the freedom to use one’s God-given talents to pursue a life of happiness regardless of background. This fundamental principle has made America responsible for some of humanity’s greatest achievements in music, science, art, medicine, literature, engineering and so much more, improving our quality of life and enriching our society.
DEI policies, on the other hand, discourage hard work, innovation and ingenuity. They artificially simulate what the left holds as the highest virtues: diversity over unity, equity over merit, inclusion over excellence, identity over capability, and optics over reality.
The programs erode the integrity of our essential financial, technological and manufacturing industries, the military, educational institutions and government.
Economist Milton Friedman observed, “A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither.” DEI seeks to manufacture cheap, forced equality, sacrificing excellence, honor, worthiness and the freedom of choice in its wake. Without such virtues and individual liberty, enforced equality is cheap and meaningless.
At the end of the day, merit matters. It matters to the American families who rely on our law enforcement and military to protect them from threats. And it matters to those who encourage their children to work hard to achieve their goals.
Valuing the content of one’s character and accomplishments over gender and skin color used to be a rallying cry of the modern American dream. At long last, it can be once again.
Mr. Trump’s efforts to tear down DEI should be applauded and expanded where possible. To keep the momentum going, he should continue prioritizing it throughout his presidency and encourage Congress and state governments to do the same.
Now is the time to cultivate American ingenuity, patriotism and greatness instead of a coercive, intellectually conformist, dishonest facade that harms our national image, economic security and physical safety.
DEI has been a resounding failure, and the American people have had enough. The president would do well to continue targeting these poisonous programs that sacrifice our most sacred principles on the altar of the woke left’s virtue-signaling agenda.
• Tim Chapman is president of Advancing American Freedom.
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