Donald Trump’s vow to ban diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in workplaces and educational institutions on day one of his administration is not about fairness—it’s about erasing decades of progress and reinstating systemic racial barriers under the guise of equality. This is not a neutral policy proposal but the blueprint for a modern-day colorblind Jim Crow 2.0.
Calling DEI “Didn’t Earn It,” as critics derisively refer to it, is not just insulting but echoes the rhetoric and practices of the Jim Crow era, which were designed to delegitimize the achievements and contributions of Black Americans by framing them as unqualified or undeserving. The poll taxes and literacy tests of that era operated under the idea that Black people were fundamentally unqualified to participate in democracy. The Supreme Court justified “Jim Crow” aka separate but “equal” by arguing in Plessy v. Ferguson that racial separation did not impose inequality and that any perception of inferiority among Black Americans was a result of their own faulty thinking. Ironically the Roberts Court, in its decision to strike down affirmative action in college admission also accused Black people of a similar type of “faulty thinking.” Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the majority: “They have wrongly concluded that the touchstone of an individual’s identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin…”Legal scholar Cedric Merlin Powell argues that such logic rewrites history and creates an unworkably narrow definition of discrimination, focusing on outcomes while ignoring structural inequity.
