Republicans Are Letting DEI in through the Back Door

D ei is on the ropes. Or at least it seems so from recent headlines. Universities across America have grudgingly removed race as a factor in college admissions, with some statewide university systems swearing off “diversity, equity, and inclusion” altogether. In corporate America, many corporations have softened or at least adjusted their DEI policies, while institutional investors now face significant legal liability for investing based on race. And the Biden administration continues its miserable losing streak in court, most recently being ordered to open the Minority Business Development Agency to all Americans regardless of race.

But DEI seems stubbornly durable. The Biden administration frequently announces new DEI initiatives and race-based funding programs. So if DEI is truly on the ropes, then why is the federal bureaucracy pointed firmly in that direction? Republicans may be partly to blame.

Consider the pending Farm Bill. For those unfamiliar, the Farm Bill is a comprehensive omnibus law passed every five or six years that sets agricultural policy for the United States. The last Farm Bill, passed in 2018, cost taxpayers around $1.4 trillion.

Last month, the Republican-controlled House Agriculture Committee advanced the 2024 Farm Bill in a bipartisan vote. For opponents of DEI, the bill is a major disappointment. Despite Republican authorship, the new 2024 bill expands several race-based DEI programs aimed at helping only non-white farmers.

Take the Agricultural Land Easement Program, for example. This well-meaning program supports farmers by paying for conservation easements to protect forests, pastures, croplands, and grasslands. Under this new proposal, a farmer’s race determines how much money the federal government contributes. If you’re a white farmer, the feds pony up 50 percent of the cost of the easement. If you’re a non-white farmer, the feds will pay 90 percent. The rest of the money is to be paid by state governments. The upshot is that non-white farmers are more likely to be paid for agricultural easements. That’s “equity,” as they say.

The Farm Bill doesn’t stop there. Several provisions expand preferences for “socially disadvantaged” farmers: wetland benefits, forestland benefits, disaster relief, and energy-efficiency grants. “Socially disadvantaged” is a euphemism in federal law for “non-white.” It isn’t new: For years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has run dozens of race-based programs under the guise of supporting “socially disadvantaged” farmers, including the infamous (and unconstitutional) race-based Farmer Loan Forgiveness Program. Despite this track record of discrimination at the USDA, Republicans seem content to give the agency a free pass, allowing it to victimize white farmers with racialized DEI programs.

The Farm Bill isn’t the Republicans’ first foray into supporting the Biden administration’s DEI misadventures. Nineteen Republican Senators voted to pass the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure act in 2021, a Christmas tree of pork decorated with over a dozen new DEI programs. That act funded billions for race-based small-business programs, contractor set-asides, and grant programs. As just one example, the bipartisan infrastructure act included the Digital Equity Act, a multibillion-dollar slush fund designed to dole out technology grants based partly on race.

Not to be outdone, in 2022, bipartisan majorities passed the $1.5 trillion Consolidated Omnibus Appropriations Act. Among other DEI programs, this law contains millions for rural agricultural co-ops run by non-whites, $1 billion for the EPA to spend on “disadvantaged communities,” scholarships and internships for “disadvantaged” students, and a “Greenhouse Gas Technical Assistance Provider Advisory Council” (whatever that is), which must have one to three members from “socially disadvantaged groups.” Again, these are all race-based criteria cloaked in the term “disadvantaged.”

Republicans in Congress continue to put up little resistance to the expansion of DEI programs. The recent FAA Reauthorization Act passed the House with a vote of 387–26 and was hustled through the Senate by Senator Ted Cruz. Yet the bill, signed by President Biden on May 16, contains multiple DEI programs, including a grant program aimed at “populations that are underrepresented in the aviation industry” and another to support “Minority and Disadvantaged Business Participation.”

DEI’s durability continues in the face of strong opposition by Republican voters. In February 2024, a Marquette University poll found that 93 percent of Republicans supported the Supreme Court’s decision outlawing racial preferences. If that’s true, then why are Republicans in Congress so eager to go along with the DEI agenda when DEI seems to be floundering everywhere else in America? The answer may be that Republicans in Congress are unaware that Biden’s agencies disguise racially discriminatory programs in the term “disadvantaged,” or even the more benign-sounding “small-business concern.” Bureaucrats happily insert these neutral terms into legislation and then create DEI programs based on bipartisan congressional authorization. Or it may even be that Republicans seek the positive attention generated by some DEI programs, such as when Republicans recently mugged for the camera with rapper 50 Cent, who was promoting policies to support business owners based on race.

Going forward, Republican members of Congress should be much more careful when approving appropriation bills or any other “bipartisan” endeavor. While DEI may be flagging in corporate America or on college campuses, the massive spending power of the federal government still propels dozens, if not hundreds, of DEI programs that discriminate against millions of Americans every day based on race. If the Republican Party is going to be the party of advancing equality and opposing DEI, then its elected officials had better start paying attention.