How have the far-left policies of the Biden administration affected American diplomacy? At a recent hearing of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s accountability subcommittee, I had a chance to answer this question for Congress—and the news isn’t good.
Former President Biden ordered “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” staff hired, and he pushed new programs throughout the federal government. With alacrity, the State Department responded with changes to hiring and promotions at home and with increasingly ideological programs abroad.
The words sound fine, but “DEI” is worse than the sum of its parts.
Diversity is wonderful when it arises naturally from fair competition and individual choice. And no one has a problem with “inclusion,” though what it means is a bit woolly.
It’s “equity” where we run into problems. The word used to—and still should—mean fairness. Equal opportunity and equal treatment. But to the political left, it means “equal results.”
In life, variables beyond the control of organizations result in disparate outcomes. Critical Race Theory says any disparate outcomes are caused by unseen forces like “structural bias” or “systemic racism.” For proponents of this theory, and the most recent Democratic presidential nominee was explicit about this, “equity” means ensuring equal outcomes, by whatever means necessary. They accordingly rig the system to achieve it under labels like “DEI.”
But skilled trades need standards. When we go to the doctor, we want one who got A’s in biology. We want them to have aced the MCAT and gone to a rigorous medical school. When we get on a plane, we want pilots selected because they’re good at math, spatial reasoning, and keeping calm in a crisis. When we call 911, we want a police officer who knows the law and can catch a criminal; or a fireman who can lift an average person.
There are two ways you get diversity in selective professions: educate everyone to a high standard and let them compete, or discriminate to get the sex and race percentages you want.
At home, there’s no evidence of systemic bias at the State Department against favored minorities. The sad truth is that American education fails to deliver a pipeline of potential recruits that is as racially diverse as our country. Only 30% of 8th-grade students in the U.S. are “proficient” readers. In 2023, not a single child tested proficient in math across 67 schools in the state of Illinois.
In 2020, the Smithsonian Museum wanted us to believe that “hard work is the key to success” and “work before you play” were aspects of “White Culture.” That would have surprised my friend Taitusi in Fiji, a successful builder. It would have perplexed my friend Kojo in Togo, who got up at dawn every day to run his coffee farm. I’ve lived 10 years in Africa, four in Asia, and 20 in Europe. The values that make people succeed are the same the world over.
The reason American schools fail is because we let them. Economist Roland Fryer’s research on charter schools showed that success is not about teacher pay, iPads, or class sizes. It’s about accountable teachers, data-driven instruction, tutoring, more time in class, and high expectations.
Strong families, homework, discipline, no phones in class, and high expectations would fix our schools. That would increase the talent pool. That would allow diversity to occur naturally in competitive fields. But instead, the State Department, like so many other institutions, has decided to achieve its diversity goals by lowering hiring standards and rigging outcomes.
Meanwhile, in our foreign policy, rather than following its own Joint Strategic Plan and concentrating on the “values at the heart of the American way of life,” the Department has pursued a leftist agenda.
The Biden State Department’s Equity Action Plan contained the word “equity” 113 times—but “equality” appeared only seven times. Under former Secretary Antony Blinken, the State Department offered grants to promote transgenderism in India, drag performances in Ecuador, LGBTQIA+ awareness in Botswana, a “gender and sexuality library” in Lebanon, and DEI training for police in Latin America.
At that Foreign Affairs subcommittee meeting, Rep. Cory Mills, Florida Republican and the panel chairman, asked me if since implementing DEI, “the State Department has become more effective in their diplomacy efforts and in securing U.S. national interests abroad?”
I had to answer no, on all fronts. And I’d like to see someone make a data-driven case that it has.
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Mr. Blinken’s USAID promoted “gender-affirming” medical care, although other developed countries like the UK have banned it for minors. They conflated “conversion therapy” with any effort to help young people accept biological reality. At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats fought to replace “sex” with “sexual orientation and gender identity,” and “women” with “women, in all their diversity.” This is code for allowing men to self-identify into women’s spaces and compete against women in sports.
Woke ideology is dug in. Consultants are making millions writing and advising about it. In defiance of President Trump’s clear orders, some agencies and institutions that get federal money will resist or rebrand.
At NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, they kept their DEI chief but renamed her. She’s not “Chief Inclusion Officer”—she’s the “Chief of the Office of Team Excellence and Employee Success.”
The same thing is happening at universities. New titles, same old jobs.
Discrimination is discrimination, whether you call it affirmative action, or DEI, or Belonging, or Engagement, or Success, or Excellence. Hiring people because of how they look, not what they do, is wrong. And illegal.
The State Department’s guiding principles at home must be equal opportunity, fair treatment, high expectations, and accountability. In foreign policy, the focus must be on enduring American values.
This piece originally appeared in The Washington Times
