CHRISTOPHER RUFO: The campaign for colorblind equality just notched its biggest win yet
Editor's note: The following column was first published in City Journal.
On Monday, President Trump signed an executive order abolishing the "diversity, equity, and inclusion" bureaucracy in the federal government.
The move marks a stunning reversal of fortune from just four years ago, when Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, and DEI seemed unstoppable. Following the death of George Floyd, left-wing race activists made a blitz through America’s institutions, rewriting school curricula, altering government policy, and establishing DEI offices in major universities, big-city school districts, and Fortune 100 companies. The Biden administration immediately followed suit, mandating a "whole-of-government equity agenda" that entrenched DEI in the federal government.
No more. President Trump has rescinded the Biden executive order and instructed his Cabinet to "terminate, to the maximum extent allowed by law, all DEI, DEIA, and ‘environmental justice’ offices and positions," and "all ‘equity action plans,’ ‘equity’ actions, initiatives, or programs." In other words, President Trump has signed the death warrant for DEI within the federal government.
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How did we get here? Through patiently building a movement and winning the public debate. At the beginning of 2023, I worked with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to launch the "abolish DEI" campaign. We began by terminating the DEI bureaucracy at New College of Florida, a small public university in Sarasota, where I serve as a trustee. The reaction from the racialist Left was intense. Protesters descended on the campus and the left-wing media published hundreds of articles condemning the move. But we held firm and made the case that public institutions should judge individuals based on their accomplishments, rather than their ancestry.
The argument began to take hold. The polling data indicated that Americans supported a "colorblind society" over a "race-conscious society" by large margins. Even the New York Times, one of the largest boosters of left-wing racialism, started publishing pieces that criticized DEI. At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement was ensnared in scandals and the leading intellectual voices of DEI, such as Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, faced sustained public scrutiny and seemed to disappear from the spotlight.
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We pushed onward. Gov. DeSantis led the way, signing legislation abolishing the DEI bureaucracy in all of Florida’s public universities. A dozen other red states followed, restricting DEI programs and banning DEI-style discrimination in their public institutions. The process became a virtuous cycle: each state that passed an anti-DEI bill reduced the risk of the next state doing the same. The campaign moved from the realm of debate to the realm of policy.
Trump’s victory over Kamala Harris on November 5 sealed DEI’s fate. Corporate America, including companies such as Walmart, and Meta, interpreted the event as an incentive to change, voluntarily terminating their DEI programs before Trump took office. Mark Zuckerberg made it explicit, arguing that the country had reached a "cultural tipping point," which convinced him to stop DEI programs. And Zuckerberg, along with numerous other tech titans, were prominently seated at the inauguration on Monday.
In one way, Trump’s executive order on Monday was priced in—people knew it was coming. Still, it is a crowning achievement for those who have built this campaign from the ground up. There will be many fights ahead—the bureaucracy will attempt to evade the order, and more needs doing on civil rights reform in general—but, for the moment, we should celebrate. The forces of left-wing racialism are on the defensive, and the forces of colorblind equality are on the move.
None of it was inevitable—and nothing will be going forward, either. It has taken courage, hard work, and more than a little luck. But this is undoubtedly a moment to feel optimistic.
America’s institutions are not beyond correction, as many feared. The American people were wise enough to realize that their country might not have survived four or eight more years of government by DEI. They spoke on November 5, and now President Trump is acting accordingly.