From DEI Duplicity to DEI Denial

From politics and media, to HR and academia, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) is all the rage throughout our nation as more attention is devoted to issues of race and ethnicity. The DEI issue garnered much attention earlier this year on college campuses as story after story revealed numerous controversies surroundding DEI policies and practices that created more questions than answers about whether the DEI realities actually promote true diversity, equity, and inclusion versus division, exclusion, and intolerance. DEI certainly came to a head late Spring as Palestinian proterstors waged a PR war on campuses throughout the country resulting in buildings occupied, classes interrupted, and Jewish students taunted and threatened.

Most recently, DEI once again captured the media spotlight as Vice President Kamala Harris became the replacement Democratic candidate when President Biden was pressured into submission by Democrat insiders. On Sunday July 21st, Biden announced that he would not run for re-election. This decision suddenly elevated Vice President Harris to become the heir apparent Presidential candidate for the November 5th elections.

Not long after Presidednt Biden's announcement, Republicans began referring to Harris as the "DEI Candidate". To be clear, this was not because of her embrace of "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" practices and policies. Rather, she was crawned with this label thanks to Biden and the media. No more than six months after Biden and Harris entered the White House, Biden signed Executive Order 14035, which establishes DEI as a government-wide intitative because, "As the Nation’s largest employer, the Federal Government must be a model for diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility, where all employees are treated with dignity and respect."

The Biden-Harris Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce spells out in great detail the parameters and expectations for how this government-wide program will be implemented and executed. The document proceeds to explain the broader context of how it originated and the overall mission with the following example:

This order reaffirms support for, and builds upon, the procedures established by Executive Orders 13583, 13988, and 14020, the Presidential Memorandum on Promoting Diversity and Inclusion in the National Security Workforce, and the National Security Memorandum on Revitalizing America’s Foreign Policy and National Security Workforce, Institutions, and Partnerships.  This order establishes that diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility are priorities for my Administration and benefit the entire Federal Government and the Nation, and establishes additional procedures to advance these priorities across the Federal workforce.

It is crystal clear that the Biden-Harris Administration takes great pride in projecting itself as THE diversity administration by virtue of it's explicit commitment to extolling the virtues and values of DEI and highlightihng its DEI trackrecord above and beyond any other adminstration in our nation's history.

That said, the pushback from the Biden-Harris administration and the left, media included, has been a sight to behold. Collectively, while they flippantly argue that the GOP is racist for labeling Harris a "DEI Candidate", their collective amnesia has overlooked numerous DEI details straight from the mouth of Biden that have either crowned her as a "DEI Candidate" or celebrated her DEI credentials.

Consider this August 30, 2019 CNN article headline, Biden says he would prefer a person of color or a woman as his vice president. From there, the article captures Biden's own words on the Vice Presidential candidate selection:

Spartanburg, South CarolinaCNN — 

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday that when picking a running mate, he would prefer someone who was “of color and/or a different gender.”

“Whomever I pick, preferably it will be someone who was of color and/or a different gender, but I’m not making that commitment until I know that the person I’m dealing with I can completely and thoroughly trust as authentic and on the same page [as me],” Biden said while speaking to a roundtable of black journalists.

The comment echoed previous statements he’s made. When asked by CNN’s Chris Cuomo in July if he would need to have a female running mate, Biden replied, “I think it’d be great to have a female VP.”

Correct me if I'm wrong, but If that's not in the spirit and intent of DEI, then DEI is more elusive than a runaway Barry Sanders in an open field surrounded by Green Bay Packer defenders! Good luck trying to grasp, understand, and coherently apply DEI consistently. Better yet, maybe we need to change DEI altogether to somethign like DEC....Diversity, Equity, and C-O-N-F-U-S-I-O-N! But wiat, there's more.

In another example, consider this statement from the "WHITE HOUSE INITIATIVE on ASIAN AMERICANS, NATIVE HAWAIIANS, and PACIFIC ISLANDERS: NATIONA L STRATEGY to ADVANCE EQUITY, JUSTICE , and OPPORTUNITY for ASIAN AMERICAN, NATIVE HAWAIIAN, and PACIFIC ISLANDER COMMUNITIES", January 2023:

On his first day in office, President Biden signed Executive Order 13985, Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. The Executive Order committed to a whole-of-government equity agenda and recognized that although the ideal of equal opportunity is the bedrock of American democracy, entrenched disparities in our laws, public policies, and institutions too often deny equal opportunity to individuals and communities.

After highlighting the Biden list of DEI accomplishments, the document goes on to further state the following:

The Biden-Harris Administration reflects the rich diversity of America, with a series of historic firsts. In addition to having groundbreaking Asian American representation with the election of Vice President Kamala Harris, the President’s Cabinet also includes U.S. Trade Representative Ambassador Katherine Tai and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Dr. Arati Prabhakar.

The evidence is undeniable that racial and ethnic identity for Biden is to be elevated, celebrated and promoted as DEI credentials, and it is because of this, that Harris has been branded as a "DEI Candidate". The criterion that makes "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" functional and relevant in politics, employment, academia, and elsewhere makes it equally applicable in the labeling of candidates whose racial and ethnic identity have already been celebreted in prior situations, which I have highlighted above. To deny this racial and ethnic manipulation is absurd, dishonest, and duplicitous. I say duplicitous because it is a double standard and contradictory when you assert and celebrate racial and ethnic identity when it's convenient and advantageous for self-serviing pruposes. But when rivals do the same as a critque of the misuse of racial and ethnic ideinty or to highlight candidates based on a questonable selecton process that disregards important deficiencies, DEI advocates erroneously cry foul, as if they're the only ones permitted to speak on the issue, which for them can only be in the affirmative. This is the heights of hypocrisy and is what makes politics detestable.

Biden's DEI duplicty was also on center stage duing a campaign speech on May 29th at Girard College. This speech is proof positive of Biden's role in the elevation of Kamala Harris's DEI credentials that ultimately led to and inspired the Republicans' use of the "DEI Candidate" term to critcally highlight the DEI system and to call into question the fitness of her Presidential candidacy given her leadershp failures on issues ranging from her role as "Border Czar" and the ongoing immigration woes we face nationally, to foreign policy and US energy independence, and everything in between. In the quote below, you'll see Biden celebrate Vice President Harris as the embodiment of all things DEI.

To me, the values of diversity, equality, inclusion are literally — and this is not kidding — the core strengths of America. That’s why I’m proud to have the most diverse administration in history that taps into the full talents of our country. And it starts at the top with the Vice President.

Again, and in closing, going back to the White House Initiative document mentioned a few paragraphs above, if Kamala as Vice President was history-making in the 2020 Presidential Election because she became the first "Asian American Vice President", her candicacy in this year's Presidential race, as selected by Biden himself, is the fulfillment of Executive Order 13985, which for Biden is what made DEI "a whole-of-government equity agenda". Kamala's candidacy is DEI in action through-and-through, and to argue otherwise is nothing but DEI Denial.

Biden Shames Black Vote: Black History Slams Back

When Joe Biden uttered the now infamous words during his recent interview on the Breakfast Club, "You’ve got more questions? Well, I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”, many Americans, Black and White, Republican and Democrat, were shocked, outraged, and speechless. That includes me, which is why I have written this refutation of Biden for his arrogance, entitlement and attempt to shame and intimidate the Black vote to support his candidacy for President of the United States. Through the words of Frederick Douglass, I am convinced that Joe Biden is fundamentally flawed and on the wrong side of history by taking for granted the Black vote and imposing a dangerous racial standard to validate and authenticate Blackness and Black electoral behavior.

As I stated above, Biden's attitude of arrogance and entitlement was fundamentally wrong because his words are a telling example of how he takes for granted the Black vote. History has much to say about controversies surrounding the Black vote and free speech, and Frederick Douglass is no exception.

Douglass’s famed, Plea for Freedom of Speech in Boston is one of his best lectures and speaks compellingly from the past to the present. Toward the end of this historic statement, he highlights the sanctity and inviolability of free speech. For Douglass, there was no compromise when it came to this fundamental right, especially when protests against the evils of chattel slavery were involved. Douglass makes this crystal clear in the following:

No right was deemed by the fathers of the Government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government. Daniel Webster called it a homebred right, a fireside privilege. Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech. Five years of its exercise would banish the auction block and break every chain in the South. They will have none of it there, for they have the power. But shall it be so here?

The quote above shows that any attempt to restrict free speech is hostile to the tenets of liberty and is at odds with our nation's founding principles. But when it comes to voting, is our American election day tradition considered "speech"? Interestingly, the Supreme Court has long wrestled with this very question. Still, there's reason to believe that given judicial ambivalence on this topic, The Court's history remains inconclusive. Consider the very fine analysis in the article, Voting Is Speech by Armand Derfner and J. Gerald Hebert in the Yale Policy and Law Review (Vol 34, Issue 2):

The Court’s relaxed review of voting restrictions would not be surprising if voting were not a fundamental right. But isn’t the right to vote fundamental, when it is “preservative of all rights”?94 And shouldn’t voting be regarded as speech deserving of full First Amendment protection when it serves a clear expressive function? One answer to these questions is that the Supreme Court has never said “No.” Despite the Court’s current jurisprudential confusion, the Supreme Court has never explicitly considered, much less rejected, the argument that voting is speech fully protected by the First Amendment. The Supreme Court in Harper, the poll tax case, specifically recognized and left open the question of the First Amendment’s application to restrictions on the right and proceeded to decide the case under the Equal Protection Clause.95 Supreme Court case law supports a theory of First Amendment protection for voters. The Court has repeatedly characterized the fundamental right to vote in terms of “voice” and expression. In Wesberry v. Sanders, the Court explained: “[N]o right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws.”

Derfner and Hebert continue their inquiry by arguing that The Court can resolve this dilemma by affirming the nexus between voting and speech as legally justifiable and in accordance with Constitutional integrity. Before concluding, they write: "The Court should correct its course deviation and place the right to vote at the top of the pantheon of rights protected by the First Amendment. The right to vote is both fundamental to our democratic society and fundamentally expressive; it should be properly protected by strict scrutiny alongside other fundamental rights."

When combined, both articles more than affirm the Constitution's free speech authority as a legal basis for safeguarding voting as an act of protected speech. Douglass challenges Biden's lack of historical propriety when it comes to the sanctity of free speech in Black History movements. Derfner and Hebert underscore the viability of voting as a Constitutionally protected free speech act. The end result is the creation of a pathway whereby the argument can be made that Biden's carelessly offensive remark is morally and legally objectionable because it offends the notion of voting as free speech, creates an artificial and derogatory obligation based on race, shames and intimidates on the basis of race, and is used to unlawfully and unfairly validate/authenticate voter's racial acceptability and responsibility in conformity with politically fabricated self-serving norms. No, it was neither a policy prescription nor an act of force but rather a passive-aggressive attempt to guilt, shame, and intimidate the African American vote, which was heard loud and clear by an overwhelming number of Americans. Again, Biden is on the wrong side of history because he expressed an attitude that is morally and legally indefensible, one that is more in keeping with Jim Crow era politics.

While Biden has since apologized, his comments remain problematic and a real concern for the body politic because of the attitude he so freely and flippantly communicated to the public. Douglass's plea cuts to the core of Biden's wrongness and in the process elevates history as the necessary corrective to his flawed political worldview and derogatory attitudes around race, identity, and electoral behavior.