Leftists are attacking President Donald Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and other conservatives for dismantling “diversity, equity, and inclusion” programs, unfairly lumping together people with disabilities with people who exploit DEI for unfair gain.
Yet forcibly requiring an agency or organization to hire someone—the DEI approach—versus not allowing them to be discriminated against (e.g., through disability protections) are very different. One is a hiring mandate, regardless of merit. The other is protection for people who are still capable of fairly competing in a meritocracy.
One is a discriminatory, unconstitutional demand that far exceeds the legal mandate that people not be discriminated against in the workplace because of race, religion, or sex; the other is a constitutional assurance of equal protection. The Americans With Disabilities Act protects Americans against discrimination in employment and other areas. It was passed in 1990, decades before the onslaught of massive DEI adoption in recent years and it will survive after DEI efforts are rolled back.
Abbott signed an executive order last month directing all Texas state agencies “to eliminate any forms of DEI policies and to treat all people equally regardless of race.” This didn’t sit well with leftists who want to perpetuate and expand discrimination based on race and gender.
Abbott is in a wheelchair following a paralyzing accident 40 years ago. The Left claims he’s a hypocrite and that the Right doesn’t care about vulnerable disabled people.
“[Greg] Abbott, the governor of Texas, using the wheelchair access infrastructure, built because of inclusivity policies, to get to his office and sign a bill dismantling DEI is peak brain rot,” Rachel Schlueter, who identifies herself as a “teacher and public education advocate,” posted on X.
“If someone says to him, ‘Well, you don’t deserve to be here because you only got in here because of the wheelchair ramp,’ he would push back and say, ‘No, I got in here because I did the work to become the governor of this state,’” said Ramses Ja, host of “Black Information Network Daily Podcast,” on his iHeart Radio program. “And he would be insulted by that. But he cannot conceive of the inverse of that. That white privilege is a blinder.”
By these leftists’ rationale, disability issues fall under the “equity” and “inclusion” umbrella of DEI, e.g., including people with disabilities and giving them equitable access. Or perhaps the “diversity” also includes people with diverse abilities and disabilities.
DEI hiring mandates cast a pall over hiring decisions and lead to stigmatization. DEI is a new dressing for an older concept of “affirmative action,” which famed economist Thomas Sowell noted creates academic failure and resentment between races.
Hiring someone physically unable to do a job can be dangerous, as in the case of Los Angeles, which this year has battled its most deadly fires in its history. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Fire Department’s diversity chief was paid $307,000 a year, and she defended hiring female firefighters too weak to carry a man out of a fire by blaming the victim, saying, “He got himself in the wrong place if I have to carry him out of a fire.”
Forcing the hiring of someone simply because of her skin color, sex, race, etc. who is less able to do a job erodes meritocracy. Specific jobs require specialized skill sets. To ignore someone’s skills and abilities, or lack thereof, can hurt public safety when hiring unqualified workers.
It can also hurt profitability, which hurts income, jobs, and household wealth (including retirement security) for everyday Americans. Economic policy advocacy organization Unleash Prosperity noted a recent academic literature review among finance journals showing the growing evidence that companies have negative returns the more they embrace DEI principles.
Discrimination is wrong and illegal, but that flows both ways. It’s wrong to discriminate against someone because they are disabled (or for their race, sex, religion, etc.), just as it’s wrong to discriminate against someone because they are male, white, heterosexual, or any other disfavored group under the DEI lens.
Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a world where we are judged by our character, not our external appearance. His words provide wisdom today as they did in his time. DEI violates the spirit of King’s words, but thankfully, our policymakers are increasingly standing firm in favor of equal opportunity rather than forced equal outcomes.
Carrie Sheffield is a senior policy analyst for the Center for Economic Opportunity at Independent Women’s Forum.
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This article was originally published at www.dailysignal.com
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