Why We Must Defend DEI Workers if We Want Democracy
The groundwork for the current Administration’s agenda developed over decades, but a critical moment was merely weeks after the murder of George Floyd in 2020. Few understood how Manhattan Institute fellow Chris Rufo’s first blog attacking diversity, equity and inclusion was a key part of the authoritarian playbook. Rufo penned his attack in the wake of the largest multiracial uprising against systemic racism in our country’s history , at a time when the term ‘systemic racism’ appeared more frequently in the media than in the past 30 years combined. The far right later introduced a wave of legislation on “critical race theory,” which attempted to deny the existence of systemic racism that has led to today’s attacks on all forms of equity.
The attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in government are an attack on democracy. Authoritarianism depends on creating an “out group” that is treated as less than human, without rights and power.
Whether it be the Nazis’ genocidal plans for Jews, LGBTQIA people, the disabled and the Roma people, the Hindu supremacists attacks on Muslims, the Brazilian right-wing populist’s attacks on Afro-Brazilians and indigenous people under Bolsonaro, or Russia’s attempts at cultural genocide of Ukraine, this is a feature not a bug of authoritarian and fascists movements.
Equity is the antidote. Equity as a concept has been developed and designed to address disparate outcomes across groups of people produced by a political or economic system. It can and should be applied to racial, gender, economic, ethnic, and any other disparities that are produced by systems. It is widely documented that inequities in societies give rise to authoritarianism. Conversely, equity is a value that directly confronts “othering” or creating “out groups” challenging the foundation of the authoritarian threat.
The largest “producer” of equity (or creator of inequity) is always government. Whether you are looking at the wildly popular social security program, the impact of the environmental justice office in the Environmental Protection Agency, or the work of the Veteran’s Administration, government is the only engine that can make life fairer in our country at larger scale. And you cannot have a government that serves all people and closes equity gaps without DEI analysis, data, programs and of course federal workers.
Serving on the frontline of equity and democracy has cost federal equity workers dearly. They not only were the first to be targeted and fired by DOGE and the Trump Executive Orders. They have now been placed on “DEI Watchlists” by extremists, with some receiving pizza boxes at odd hours as a signal from their attackers that they know where they live. Along with judges and electoral workers at the state level, these frontline creators and defenders of democracy deserve more support than we, as a society, have given them.
Trump meanwhile continues to issue orders and direct agencies to dismantle the historic wins of the Civil Rights Movement. Claiming, falsely, that any efforts to create racial equity, justice and equality are discriminatory against white people, the Administration has fully halted enforcement of Civil Rights Laws and suspended, suppressed or eliminated data collection to monitor and guard against discrimination and inequity.
The pro-democracy movement growing larger by day in the United States needs to contend with the attacks on racial justice to succeed. Unless social movements and civil society flank and protect DEI workers the underbelly of our racialized democracy will leave us vulnerable to authoritarian threats for generations to come. The manufactured backlash to the social reckoning in 2020 is merely more evidence that DEI was working. The brief window showed us, despite the typical missteps and discomfort that any change effort brings, that there is a significant majority in our country that can usher in a new day. Seasoned DEI workers have the skills and experience to show us how.
