Trump’s expected rollback of dei can’t come soon enough

The nation is eagerly awaiting President-elect Donald Trump’s opening takedown of the many DEI policies, programs and statutes that have polarized Americans during the last 10 years or so.

He’ll begin his second term with sufficient political capital — coupled with an eager Congress and, importantly, a federal judiciary filled with judges he appointed — to set the stage for a

long-overdue transformative approach to our nation’s issues of race and governance. Now, Trump and Congress have the opportunity to reassert through executive orders, litigation and statutes

the colorblind legal covenant that binds us together as a multi-racial, multi-ethnic nation. This is not a moment for half measures but for decisive action across key areas of society,

particularly education, employment and disparate-impact liability. On education, the 2023 Supreme Court decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard rendered affirmative-action

policies in higher education unlawful, yet some elite institutions appear to be skirting compliance. EXPLORE MORE Universities that once argued that they could not maintain diversity without

explicit consideration of race — Princeton, Yale, Duke — now report remarkably stable racial demographics. Unsurprisingly, none are forthcoming with an explanation, suggesting a need for

robust federal oversight into the new admissions policies at our nation’s most competitive institutions of higher education. Furthermore, using Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which

compels federal agencies to ensure that programs receiving federal funding do not discriminate, the Departments of Education and Health and Human Services could prohibit universities from

requiring diversity statements for employment and promotions. These statements often serve as proxies for racial classifications and thus undermine merit-based evaluations. This section of

the law, as well as other statutes, should be used to compel all universities to disclose standardized test scores for applicants and admittees by race as a way to monitor possible cheating

and obfuscation by admission offices. The Department of Justice and the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights should investigate universities that added diversity essay prompts

or adopted gerrymandered proxies for race post-SFFA. For the most egregious violators, the IRS could revoke tax-exempt status. The precedent of Bob Jones University v. United States 

demonstrates the feasibility of this nuclear option. As important as is higher education, the new administration should also focus on race-based changes to admissions policies and curricula

in K–12. Too many instances have been uncovered over the years in which high-achieving secondary-school students are penalized to create racial proportionality, especially at

gifted-and-talented magnet schools. DOE’s Office for Civil Rights should target schools that have eliminated advanced courses due to racial disparities, thus ensuring access to opportunities

for high-performing students. The administration should immediately repeal Biden-era directives that extend disparate-impact liability to school-discipline policies. This would restore

authority to local educators to keep their schools safe and reduce unnecessary federal interference. The election results confirmed that the “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies

adopted by numerous US corporations, cultural institutions, government agencies and others are enormously unpopular, and mostly illegal. Americans yearn for a return of simple individual

meritocracy — the standard that ensures citizens compete on a level playing field. To this end, the DOJ should sue employers and unions that mandate race-based hiring, promotions, layoffs

and pay disparities and review past legal decrees that impose race-conscious hiring quotas. Finally, disparate-impact liability has been used to justify race-conscious policies under the

guise of preventing discrimination, often penalizing desirable, race-neutral practices that yield unequal outcomes, regardless of intent. To address that, the new White House should

reinstate Trump-era Fair Housing Act regulations, which could curtail expansive interpretations of disparate impact. In Alexander v. Sandoval, the Supreme Court left open questions about

whether disparate-impact claims are permissible under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act. Repealing existing regulations would align federal policy with a stricter interpretation of the law.

The DOJ and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should also abandon lawsuits challenging objective hiring practices, such as criminal-background checks or standardized tests. Likewise,

agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission should explicitly disavow disparate-impact liability in enforcing laws against unfair practices. The Trump

administration’s second term presents an unprecedented opportunity to recalibrate America’s approach to race and ethnicity. By championing colorblind policies and holding institutions

accountable, the administration and Congress can restore public trust in fairness and meritocracy. Let’s hope they make this a priority. _Edward Blum is the founder and president of Students

for Fair Admissions and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute._