Christopher F. Rufo The Coming Fight to Abolish DEI An open letter to Donald Trump’s Cabinet
https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-coming-fight-to-abolish-dei
There is a great clanging and clamoring around the offices in Washington, D.C. and Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Political operatives, policy wonks, and opposition figures are all planning for the arrival of the second Donald Trump administration.
I’ve spoken with many of the people in the president-elect’s orbit who are planning how to staff Cabinet departments and set a new tone on the administration’s first day. Much of our discussion has focused on the approach to DEI, or “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
While the officials in Trump world are all committed to abolishing DEI in theory, they have yet to settle on a practical approach for doing so. With this in mind, I’m writing this open letter to Trump’s incoming Cabinet, outlining how to shut down DEI and win the fight for public opinion.
The first step is to understand how DEI bureaucracies became embedded in the federal government. That is the result of actions by two presidents: Barack Obama, who issued Executive Order 13583, which laid the groundwork for many national “diversity” initiatives; and Joseph Biden, who signed Executive Orders 13985 and 14035, which entrenched DEI principles into every federal department and routed billions of dollars toward advancing this ideology throughout American society.
Having understood this history, Cabinet officials must work with President Trump to rescind President Obama and President Biden’s executive orders. In their place, the 47th president should sign an order advancing the principle of colorblind equality, stating that the government shall treat all individuals equally according to their merit, rather than unequally according to their ancestry.
The second task is the work of administration. It’s one thing to issue an executive order, and another to make it a reality across the sprawling federal bureaucracy.
On this score, my primary guidance for Trump’s Cabinet is swiftly to shut down all DEI programs and to terminate the employment of all policy officials responsible for those programs, effective immediately. There is an enormous advantage to acting quickly and aggressively on the first day, when the public is most willing to grant the new administration discretion. Every president has the right to shape his own administration according to his principles, and DEI principles are diametrically opposed to those of President Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, and the Cabinet writ large.
I have experience implementing such a policy as a trustee at New College of Florida, where we became the first institution in America to abolish the DEI department. As expected, this led to frenzied headlines and a fierce public debate. But we were able to cut that debate short because we acted decisively and effectuated our policy immediately. The policy was issued, the department was terminated, and the director was pink-slipped—all in one fell swoop.
Cabinet officials in the second Trump administration should pursue a similar course of action. They have important work to pursue, and the federal DEI bureaucracy, if not dispatched immediately, will prevent that work from being done effectively. Cabinet secretaries should task their aides with creating a list of all DEI programs, departments, and policies, and, if the president issues an order along the lines I’ve outlined, terminate them within hours of the decision.
The third step is to win the fight in the press. Here again, our policy at the New College of Florida is instructive. Progressive media outlets tried to turn our elimination of DEI into a negative news cycle, but we outwitted them by speed and substitution. Because we worked so quickly, we ensured that the stories about our policy were part of a single, rather than an ongoing, news cycle. We also paired our abolition of DEI with a replacement policy, which advanced the principle of colorblind equality.
This created an immense narrative advantage, as it allowed the public to weigh one approach against another. And public polling data indicate that Americans support a colorblind society over a race-conscious one by a nearly 70-to-20 margin. To the extent that Cabinet officials publicly emphasize the concept of colorblind equality, they will ground their case against DEI in popular opinion and cast their opponents into the fringes.
Finally, Cabinet members should take advantage of the inevitable frenzy that will surround the new administration’s various policies and personalities. Abolishing DEI, while important, will register as a secondary headline. If officials successfully abolish these diversity programs, they can move on and never have to address it again.
The principle underlying this course of action is simple: America doesn’t need a permanent DEI bureaucracy. America needs an effective administration that treats its citizens in a fair manner without regard to race. This is broadly popular, morally just, and, with this administration, achievable as a public policy for the first time in a generation.
My lasting hope is that President Trump can disband the DEI bureaucracy—forever. While such a prospect may sound unlikely, this administration has the opportunity to get it done, supplement it with legislation in Congress, and persuade the American people never to go back to discrimination under the guise of “equity.”
So, prepare for the opening salvo. The fight to abolish DEI has arrived.
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