Romano-Trump Bans DEI In Federal Govt—States And Corporations Are Next

From the Daily Torch to this writer for MHProNews and this Patch is the Robert Romano take on in Part I the President Donald J. Trump executive order (a.k.a.: E.O. or EO) the 'abolished' Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in the federal government. C.U.R.E. President Star Parker's take on the DEI topic is featured in Part II. While there is evidence that at least some federal officials are slyly trying to avoid compliance to the Trump E.O. ending DEI in the government that action is a step at ending waste and a politicized Biden-Harris (D) era initiative.

More on that plus other items in Part III.

Part I

Trump Bans DEI In The Federal Government—And Everywhere Else As States And Corporations Are Next

By Robert Romano

President Donald Trump is concluding his first week in office for his historic second term and has not wasted any time at all with issuing executive orders under federal law declaring national border and energy emergencies, ending censorship and the weaponization of the federal government and even declassifying any and all documents to do with the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Sr. and Martin Luther King, Jr.

But one that stands out were a trio of executive orders abolishing all legally dubious diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs and offices in the entire federal government and eliminating all racial and gender preferences in hiring and promotion in the federal government and opting for a merit-based system in federal hiring, consistent with the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and the Civil Rights Act that abolished racial, sexual and religious preferences and quotas.

And it’s not just the federal government that will have to comply with the provisions of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act — so will everyone else. In the order entitled, “Ending Illegal Discrimination And Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” Trump also announced his intention to enforce federal civil rights laws on states including schools and universities and on private employers as specifically required under Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act.

For states, Trump is immediately focused on enforcing race and gender-neutral admissions at colleges and universities to bring into effect the 2023 Supreme Court ruling Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College that found affirmative action admissions policies to violate the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act: “the Attorney General and the Secretary of Education shall jointly issue guidance to all State and local educational agencies that receive Federal funds, as well as all institutions of higher education that receive Federal grants or participate in the Federal student loan assistance program under Title IV of the Higher Education Act, 20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq., regarding the measures and practices required to comply with Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, 600 U.S. 181 (2023).”

And the order outlines that the administration will enforce federal civil rights laws against DEI programs by private employers: “the Attorney General, within 120 days of this order, in consultation with the heads of relevant agencies and in coordination with the Director of OMB, shall submit a report to the Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy containing recommendations for enforcing Federal civil-rights laws and taking other appropriate measures to encourage the private sector to end illegal discrimination and preferences, including DEI.”

Taken together, these effectively ban DEI nationwide. Although to be fair, racial and gender preferences in any direction already violate federal civil rights laws, it’s just that for decades a series of executive actions and court precedents have sought to allow them for minorities who were historically discriminated against and even those who were not.

Diversity hiring quotas like these might appear to run afoul of the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s prohibition on employment discrimination on the basis of race or sex: “It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer… to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; or … to limit, segregate, or classify his employees or applicants for employment in any way which would deprive or tend to deprive any individual of employment opportunities or otherwise adversely affect his status as an employee, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.”

However, thanks to the 1979 ruling by the Supreme Court ruling Steelworkers v. Weber which ruled that employment policies that racial preferences on the basis of race and sex in favor of women and minorities, which plaintiffs argued was reverse discrimination, were not a violation of the Civil Rights Act, in effect legalizing employment discrimination against whites and males. This was a sharp departure from more racially neutral interpretations of the Civil Rights Act by federal courts that preceded the decision.

Then Associate Justice William Rehnquist, who would go on to become the Court’s 16th Chief Justice in 1986, in his dissenting opinion, compared the Court’s rewriting of the Civil Rights Act to the totalitarian regime portrayed in George Orwell’s 1984, writing that law was written plainly, “Taken in its normal meaning, and as understood by all Members of Congress who spoke to the issue during the legislative debates, this language prohibits a covered employer from considering race when making an employment decision, whether the race be black or white.”

Rehnquist blasted the majority of the court, adding, “the Court behaves much like the Orwellian speaker earlier described, as if it had been handed a note indicating that Title VII would lead to a result unacceptable to the Court if interpreted here as it was in our prior decisions. … Now we are told that the legislative history of Title VII shows that employers are free to discriminate on the basis of race: an employer may, in the Court’s words, ‘trammel the interests of the white employees’ in favor of black employees in order to eliminate ‘racial imbalance.’… Our earlier interpretations of Title VII, like the banners and posters decorating the square in Oceania, were all wrong.”

But in light of the 2023 ruling on college admissions, if racial preferences in college admissions are unconstitutional under 14th Amendment equal protection, then so are those by corporations today via their “diversity, equity and inclusion” racial and gender hiring quotas, one of the cornerstones of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment model that seeks not profit, per se, but through ownership of companies to impose certain social agendas.

Today, the question of reverse discrimination posed by ESG’s DEI corporate policies might be decided differently by today’s Supreme Court more than 40 years later.

And now, thanks to the plan outlined by Trump, those court cases are almost certainly going to headed to federal courts as the order includes identifying egregious cases of discrimination and pursuing litigation as necessary: “The report shall contain a proposed strategic enforcement plan identifying: (i) Key sectors of concern within each agency’s jurisdiction; (ii) The most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners in each sector of concern; (iii) A plan of specific steps or measures to deter DEI programs or principles (whether specifically denominated ‘DEI’ or otherwise) that constitute illegal discrimination or preferences. As a part of this plan, each agency shall identify up to nine potential civil compliance investigations of publicly traded corporations, large non-profit corporations or associations, foundations with assets of 500 million dollars or more, State and local bar and medical associations, and institutions of higher education with endowments over 1 billion dollars; (iv) Other strategies to encourage the private sector to end illegal DEI discrimination and preferences and comply with all Federal civil-rights laws; (v) Litigation that would be potentially appropriate for Federal lawsuits, intervention, or statements of interest; and (vi) Potential regulatory action and sub-regulatory guidance.”

On the final note of “[p]otential regulatory action and sub-regulatory guidance” there is also assuredly work to be done as well including under the Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) by the Barack Obama Labor Department in 2015 allowing Environmental, Social and Governance investments — including DEI programs — into tax-deferred, employer-based retirement savings accounts like the $6.3 trillion 401(k) market and other defined benefit and defined contribution plans totaling $11.9 trillion.

A 2020 regulation by the Trump Labor Department watered this regulation down a bit, mirroring a 2008 regulation by the George W. Bush Labor Department, but was promptly overturned via a May 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden defining climate change a financial risk under ERISA and affirmed later via a 2022 regulation by the Biden Labor Department. The 2008 regulation was actually a revision of a 1994 regulation by the Bill Clinton Labor Department, which in turn were revisions to the rules made by prior administrations.

These attempts to hold back ESG depend on fiduciary rules, that state as long as investments remain profitable commensurate with other non-ESG investments, then environmental, social and other factors may be taken into consideration when making economically targeted investments.

All of these rules are based on the fiduciary duties and obligations defined under federal law in 29 U.S.C. Section 1104, which states, “a fiduciary shall discharge his duties with respect to a plan solely in the interest of the participants and beneficiaries and… for the exclusive purpose of … providing benefits to participants and their beneficiaries; and … defraying reasonable expenses of administering the plan; … with the care, skill, prudence, and diligence under the circumstances then prevailing that a prudent man acting in a like capacity and familiar with such matters would use in the conduct of an enterprise of a like character and with like aims; … by diversifying the investments of the plan so as to minimize the risk of large losses, unless under the circumstances it is clearly prudent not to do so; and … in accordance with the documents and instruments governing the plan insofar as such documents and instruments are consistent with the provisions of this subchapter and subchapter III.”

But like the 2008 Bush Labor Department regulation — and every other rulemaking on this subject in fact — the 2020 Trump Labor Department once again affirmed the “all things being equal” test. None have dared to overturn that via a rulemaking.

The 2020 rulemaking stated, “Under the final rule, plan fiduciaries, when making decisions on investments and investment courses of action, must focus solely on the plan’s financial risks and returns and keep the interests of plan participants and beneficiaries in their plan benefits paramount. The fundamental principle is that an ERISA fiduciary’s evaluation of plan investments must be focused solely on economic considerations that have a material effect on the risk and return of an investment based on appropriate investment horizons, consistent with the plan’s funding policy and investment policy objectives. The corollary principle is that ERISA fiduciaries must never sacrifice investment returns, take on additional investment risk, or pay higher fees to promote non-pecuniary benefits or goals.”

So far, so good, but then the Trump Labor Department, like every single Labor Department before it, affirmed ESG investments would continue to be allowed by fiduciaries: “The final rule recognizes that there are instances where one or more environmental, social, or governance factors will present an economic business risk or opportunity that corporate officers, directors, and qualified investment professionals would appropriately treat as material economic considerations under generally accepted investment theories.”

Under that rubric, in theory DEI programs at private corporations could continue as long as the companies were profitable and generated adequate returns for investors. So could slavery for that matter, but slavery is unconstitutional under the Thirteenth Amendment and so is racial discrimination under the Fourteenth Amendment, so now, in principle when the Labor Department looks at the ESG rule again, under the Trump anti-DEI executive order, it will have to take into consideration whether retirement investments can be made to companies that are clearly violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

In short, Trump has declared war on DEI. And it will not go lightly. There will be fights every step of the way, including in federal court, just as segregation had to be fought in decades past until finally, the Supreme Court does its job and in the words of Marbury v. Madison (1803) “say[s] what the law is”. This is a sea change.

Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.

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Part II - Star Parker via the WND News Center to this writer for MHProNews and this Patch

GOLDEN AGE

Trump's DEI order – good for blacks, good for America

Our new president has a sense of mission for a 'new birth of freedom' – let's support him
By Star Parker | January 28, 2025

An ongoing principle of America's democratic republic is e pluribus unum. Out of many, one.
We honor and respect the uniqueness of every citizen. But we also have a common turf, a common set of transcendent values, that brings us together and we become one nation.

Sometimes, cracks appear. Sometimes, they grow and get larger and deeper. Things get dangerous when the cracks so severely deepen that they threaten to totally sever our common turf and our social cohesion.

Generally, the cracks reflect erosion of agreement about the nature of the core principles that hold us together.

We have arrived at the brink numerous times. But only once, the Civil War, did we cross it. Our principles were challenged over the question of slavery. It took the blood of individuals to heal the wounds of the nation.

For sure, I am not predicting civil violence in our country. But our common turf, our social reality, is clearly deeply, deeply frayed as there is increasing disagreement about our social reality, about the ideas and principles that bind us together and define us as a nation.

Nothing is more illustrative of what's happening than President Donald Trump's executive order, signed on day one of his presidency, to terminate "diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) discrimination in the federal workforce and in federal contracting and spending." The order says that it is the "most important federal civil rights measure in decades."

Trump's anti-DEI order revokes President Joe Biden's DEI executive order, issued on his first day in office, which imposed DEI throughout the federal government in the name of "advancing equity, civil rights, racial justice, and equal opportunity."

Two presidents, two parties both use the language of civil rights, both with a vision of what constitutes civil rights and social justice that are day and night. Complete opposites.

Trump assumes leadership of a deeply fractured country that is leaning slightly to the side of his party. We see this in the thin margins by which Republicans control the House and Senate.

Democrats, the left, will work the current situation to fan the flames to brand Republicans and Trump racist.

I would urge Black Americans to check the facts before buying into this narrative.

According to a profile of Black Americans just produced by Pew Research, Blacks now constitute 14.4% of the American population. Other data reported by Pew say that Blacks constitute 18.6% of the federal workforce. So, if anything, Blacks should be concerned about disproportionate dependency on federal government employment rather than lack of equity.

The data also show that the median age of Black Americans is 32.6, almost six years less than the national median age. The increasing burden of debt accumulated by the federal government, the result of the dramatic growth in government – now around 100% of our GDP and projected to continue to worsen – will fall disproportionately on these younger Black citizens. As will be the burden of the essentially bankrupt state of affairs of our major entitlement programs, Social Security and Medicare.

Per Pew's data, Black economic reality is solidly rooted in the middle class and above. Fifty-four percent of households headed by a Black American earn over $50,000. Thirty-seven percent earn over $75,000, and 25% earn over $100,000. This is not a profile of an oppressed Black America unable to work and achieve.

Back to e pluribus unum.

We are facing competing claims about what holds us together as a nation. One vision focuses on individual freedom. Another vision focuses on government power.

Trump was elected championing the vision of restoring individual freedom. Symptoms that drove more voters into the Trump/Republican camp – inflation, slow growth, diminishing international competitiveness – all are symptoms of excessive government.

Like the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, our new Republican president has a sense of mission for a "new birth of freedom."

Let's support him.

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Star Parker

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education and host of the weekly television show "Cure America with Star Parker." Her recent book, "What Is the CURE for America?" is available now.

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Part III- Additional Information with More Analysis plus Other Topics

My wife is an immigrant to the U.S. My parents were immigrants. Many of our friends are immigrants. My wife likes going to place where there is a diversity of people.

But there is a need for unity, not just diversity. From the many, one. E Pluribus Unum.

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> Rubio Senate Replacement Ashley Moody (FL-R) Gets Key Assignments

> Trump Plan: Make America Safe, Affordable, Restore U.S. Values for All

> NPR=87 Registered Democrats in Editorial Positions and No Republicans

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> Official Manufactured Housing Production from 1995-2023-Why it Matters

> Anna Paulina Luna (FL-R) and Barry Loudermilk (GA-R) MERIT Act Insight

> Executive Orders on Investigating Biden Censorship & Weaponization

> Floridian Dr István Dobozi Strikes at Trump Again in Magyar Article (Another critical analysis - fact check).

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> Why do Liars Lie? Why do those Engaged in Paltering and Spin Palter?

> Controversy-Manufactured Housing Institute-Lesli Gooch-Mark Bowersox

> ‘Mobile Home Values Rising Faster Than Single-Family’ House-Wow Fact$

> Realtor-What Is a Manufactured Home? The Next Step Beyond Mobile Homes

> Orlando RE Agent Smith-Younger Adults Will Need $8500 Monthly for Rent

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> Rob Romano-Time To Declassify Everything, Or Another RussiaGate Ahead

> Contemporary Tips from Legend Paul Harvey-Surprising Rest of the Story

> Alert: Is Affordable Housing Linked Scandal at Champion Homes Brewing?

> Report: Biden-Harris Federal Agencies Spent Millions Torturing Cats

> Lesli Gooch Ph.D.-Award, Coverup, Headfake, Scandal? Rest of the Story (Manufactured Housing Institute linked)

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> ALG Unpacks Trump Pitch to Cut Drug Costs by Cutting PBM Middleman

> Is there Evidence that God Exists? Evolution vs. Intelligent Design

> Democratic Voters-Closer Look at Biden’s Acts Before Biden-Harris Exit

> Christian Leaders-Signs of 4th 'Great Awakening' Millions go to Jesus

> Attorney John Morgan - Democrat Megadonor on Kamala Harris Campaign

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> USA Today - David Plouffe and Dem Advisers on Kamala Harris Revelation

> Majority OK Trump Transition-Mass Deportations-Tariffs- Is it Hopeful?

> Niskanen Center Praises Manufactured Home ‘Cost Savings’ and ‘Quality’

> Alice Carter-The Northern Forum-Deporting Immigrants & Housing Crisis

> Cartoons-Kamala Day 1, DOGE the Swamp, Brainwashing, & Out In the Cold

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> The Creepy Line-Peter Schweizer-Dr. Jordan Peterson-Dr. Robert Epstein

> Secret State Miniseries - Fictional TV Series Shed Light on Reality

> Trump Transition Team Asked to Prioritize Affordable Housing Issues

> Top 10 States for Homelessness & Top Cities for Crime=Shocking Lessons

> WashPost-American Dream Fades But Assoc CEO Mark Weiss Shows Solution

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> Blankley-Goodbye American Dream? Only 10% Polled Can Buy a House; But

> Frank Rolfe-Special Interests ‘Don’t Want to Solve Affordable Housing'

> TARK-‘I’m a Teen and Know the Solution to Affordable Housing Crisis’

---> Renting? Rent too High? Odds Are DOJ Suit vs RealPage Matters to You

> New-Certified “Half Price Homes” - Affordable Housing Solution Redux

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> Solution: “Would-Be Homebuyers Need 80% More Income Than 4 Years Ago”

L. A. “Tony” Kovach is a publisher who has earned multiple awards in history. He and his family live in a manufactured home on private property in Winter Haven, FL. He is the co-founder of Manufactured Home Living News.com (MHLivingNews.com) and Manufactured Home Pro News.com (MHProNews.com), trade publications serving segments of the manufactured home industry. Having worked in several segments of the manufactured home industry for over 3 decades, Kovach is a widely acknowledged and often praised expert on manufactured housing. ###