Facing a reckoning, DEI goes into a defensive crouch.

No one should be fooled by it, but the Washington Post pretends to be.

This Washington Post article, called “Trump’s fierce attacks on DEI reflect a longtime GOP focus,” is misleading as to history. Worse, it is downright dishonest as to DEI.

The Post pretends that the “diversity, equity, and inclusion” agenda is about equality of opportunity. In reality, it’s about equality of outcomes.

Since its founding, the GOP has consistently fought for equal opportunity. That has been the party’s “longtime focus.”

It was the focus of the Lincoln/Reconstruction GOP. That’s why, for example, a Reconstruction-era civil rights law — Section 1981 — provides that all people within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have “the same right to make and enforce contracts as is enjoyed by white citizens.” Democrats opposed this and other Reconstruction-era legislation.

The party of Warren Harding (a very underrated president when it comes to civil rights, among other things) and Calvin Coolidge was true to the GOP’s tradition. It stood in marked contrast to the Democrats who, under the incorrigibly racist Woodrow Wilson, insisted on racial segregation.

In 1964, it was the GOP that enabled passage of that year’s landmark civil rights law over the strenuous objections and vigorous obstruction by Southern Democrats.

To secure passage of that act, Hubert Humphrey, leader of the Democrats’ liberal wing, assured fellow Senators that this law was about equal opportunity, not equal outcomes. Humphrey went so far as to say he would eat the paper the legislation was printed on if it meant racial preferences in hiring.

As Jim Dueholm wrote in a comment to one of my posts, death saved Humphrey from a fiber rich diet. But for one shining moment, the Democrats seemed to be on the same page as the GOP in advocating equal opportunity, not forced equal results.

Since 1964, Republicans has remained largely on that page. Yes, they have had their ups and downs on this issue, but in the main the party has remained true to its roots. It wants America to be a land of equal opportunity, not one of guaranteed equal outcomes.

The Democrats are a different story. They have long since disregarded Humphrey’s promise, choosing instead to advocate preferential treatment for blacks.

The zenith of this long march was reached during the “racial reckoning” that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020. It was then that the left’s emphasis on equal outcomes became apparent for all to see in the DEI agenda.

DEI is not about equal opportunity. In the trinity of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” equity means equal outcomes. This statement from 2020, when DEI was becoming all the rage, (repeated widely since) captures the difference between equality and equity, as understood in DEI-world:

Equality means each individual or group of people is given the same resources or opportunities. Equity recognizes that each person has different circumstances and allocates the exact resources and opportunities needed to reach an equal outcome.

No equal outcome? No equity. For in DEI-world, all inequalities of outcomes are deemed the result of “systemic discrimination.” They must be corrected by preferring members of certain minority groups to achieve equity.

As Charles Lipson, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Chicago, put it:

Equality means equal treatment, unbiased competition and impartially judged outcomes. Equity means equal outcomes, achieved if necessary by unequal treatment, biased competition and preferential judging.

What does this mean in practice? It means, for example, admitting students to top universities in numbers proportionate to their representation in the general population, or the general population of high school students, regardless of their individual merit.

This often entails preferring black students over white or Asian-American students with better grades and vastly higher SAT scores. And because racial diversity and inclusion are the goals, black students from wealthy families and fancy private schools receive preferences even though they have had more opportunities than the typical white or Asian-American student who loses out. After all, their “inclusion” provides both “diversity” and “equity” in the sense of proportionate representation.

DEI also means scholarships and internships that are reserved entirely for members of a minority group. These set-asides have nothing to do with equal opportunity. The whites and Asian-Americans excluded from the programs are flat-out denied equal opportunity regardless of their individual history, which may include great hardship and denial of opportunity.

The Washington Post mostly hides all of this. It characterizes DEI as being “about leveling the playing field, not tilting it.” But the playing field obviously is tilted when black college applicants are admitted in preference to white and Asian-American students with higher grades and much higher SAT scores. And whites and Asian-Americans are kicked off the playing field when they are excluded by programs set aside for blacks.

The Post says “ DEI programs often include such elements as antidiscrimination training, efforts to ensure that women are paid fairly and initiatives to inform people of color about job openings.”

But under the DEI regime, these training programs often devolve into struggle sessions for white employees who, for example, are forced to acknowledge their alleged “white privilege.”

As for “fair pay” for women, it has been a staple of anti-discrimination law for more than half a century. Unless DEI entails a distortion of existing law to equalize pay without regard to work performed and other highly relevant factors, it adds nothing to the quest for fair pay.

Late in its article, the Post finally approaches the truth about DEI:

After George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020, the country underwent a soul-searching on racial matters. Many Americans concluded that people of color were not proportionately represented in the circles of power, and companies scrambled to put them on their boards and in their executive suites.

(Emphasis added)

Right. DEI is about proportionate representation, not just in board rooms and executive suites but in all areas of society.

Now that DEI faces its reckoning, proponents like the Post are trying to recast it as about equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes. No one should be fooled. The DEI agenda should be stamped out and the original understanding of racial fairness should be reinstated.

A word of caution, though. It’s possible that anti-DEI crusaders will encompass within their understanding of DEI some programs and policies that are consistent with the original understanding of fairness.

In this regard, the Post warns that “DEI has become a catchall pejorative among many conservatives for any program or policy seeking to provide equal access for people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community or other marginalized groups.”

If so, these conservatives are going too far. It is “DEI” to rig the college admissions process to ensure equal outcomes for minority groups. It is not DEI for the government to support charter schools in inner cities that help minority group members become better candidates for college admission, or for colleges to recruit applicants from these schools.

It is not DEI for the government or its contractors to conduct studies about whether inner city charter schools are, in fact, making their students better candidates for college admission. Nor, in my view, is it DEI for the government to direct resources to help fight diseases that impact a particular group — e.g., blacks, Latinos, Ashkenazi Jews, whites from certain parts of Europe. It would be DEI, though, to let race enter the process of prioritizing which diseases to study and combat.

I hope the Trump administration understands what DEI is and what it isn’t. There’s enough mischief to combat that actually is DEI-related without purging lawful and worthwhile programs that fall outside of that concept.