Dismantle DEI Act of 2024

November 18, 2024 2 min read Download Report

Mike Gonzalez

@Gundisalvus

Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow

Mike is the Angeles T. Arredondo E Pluribus Unum Senior Fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

Summary

The Biden Administration jammed DEI into every policy and government department. It started with the first Executive Order that President Biden signed immediately after his inauguration, EO 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” and it continued with several other EOs, policy changes, and legislative requests. The Dismantle DEI Act takes a necessary ax to all this costly and divisive activity by banning discrimination against any American on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, biological sex, or national origin. The Administration sold DEI as a benign way to address inequalities, but the words for which these letter stand have been twisted beyond all recognition, to now mean the exact opposite of what most Americans believe are meant by diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Key Takeaways

The Biden Administration jammed DEI into every policy and government department.

The Dismantle DEI Act bans discrimination against any American on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, biological sex, or national origin.

The Act restores government to the color-blind approach that the Constitution intends, that morality dictates, and that our national unity requires.

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The Dismantle DEI Act restores government to the color-blind approach that the Constitution intends, that morality dictates, and that our national unity requires. The American people have just rejected the racial excesses and obsessions of the past four years at the polls.
The Biden Administration jammed DEI into every policy and government department. It started with the first Executive Order that President Biden signed immediately after his inauguration, EO 13985, “Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government,” and it continued with several other EOs, policy changes, and legislative requests.
Biden followed up on April 14, 2022, with 25 wide-ranging “Equity Action Plans.” These plans made the government much less efficient, awarding contracts to uncompetitive bidders—wasting taxpayer money, impairing national defense, and hampering the drive for excellence in the nation’s schools. They were so radical that the main Black Lives Matter organization took credit for helping the Administration write the plans.
The Dismantle DEI Act takes a necessary ax to all this costly and divisive activity by banning discrimination against any American on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, biological sex, or national origin.
The Act revokes EO 13985 and all the other DEI EOs that followed, along with other memorandums or action plans, other executive or legislative activity that promoted these un-American actions that should have never seen the light of day.
It also prohibits departments from forcing employees to undergo training, education, or coursework that instills DEI or its beliefs—or forcing employees to make statements in support of DEI—as a condition of employment or promotion, etc. This is an overdue enforcement of the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
The Act requires that the Office of Personnel Management revise all policies, procedures, manuals, course, etc., to make sure that they are all consistent with the Act and rescind those that are not. OPM must also close its DEI offices and the Chief Diversity Officers Executive Council, which was started in Biden’s first year of office as an interagency forum to coordinate efforts to embed DEI across the federal government. The Act makes similar requests of OMB.
In fact, the Act demands that the head of any federal agency that has a DEI office close and wind up that office, reduce the workforce, and not reassign these employees elsewhere in the federal government.
The reasons to do all this should be obvious, and it beggars belief that these actions need to be defended: The government should not take any action that treats individual Americans differently or segregates them because of immutable characteristics such as race, sex, or national origin.
The Administration sold DEI as a benign way to address inequalities, but the words for which these letter stand have been twisted beyond all recognition, to now mean the exact opposite of what most Americans believe are meant by diversity, equity, and inclusion.