“the administration’s indiscriminate approach has also halted countless important projects like the use of artificial intelligence to detect early signs of breast cancer. There are simple alternative policy changes that would both curb politically biased research and protect crucial scientific research that benefits the public. For instance, the administration could change the criteria by which future grants are evaluated to avoid funding projects that are political in nature. If researchers or universities are unwilling to comply, the administration could let existing grants expire and decline further renewal.
Some higher education critics might consider this nitpicking — after all, when the federal government holds the leverage, what does it matter if the changes are implemented with the proper decorum? But they neglect the decentralized nature of universities and the buy-in from faculty required to make long-term changes.
The Trump administration’s current approach alienates exactly those influential allies within universities who would help facilitate and maintain long-term changes, forcing them to choose between left-wing intolerance and right-wing authoritarianism.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/05/19/trump-higher-ed-elite-universities-reform-00355256
US Supreme Court lets Trump cut teacher training grants in DEI-related case
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us-supreme-court-backs-trump-203405420.html
“On Inauguration Day, President Donald Trump vowed to “forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”
Less than two weeks later, Vice President J.D. Vance’s office hired Buckley Carlson—the 24-year-old son of former Fox News host and popular conservative pundit Tucker Carlson—as deputy press secretary.
At least young Buckley can be certain that he didn’t get the job because of the color of his skin.
The dismantling of the federal government’s various so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies has been one of the signature efforts of the first two months of the second Trump administration. Those rules often required that factors like race, gender, and ethnicity be considered alongside (or even ahead of) other more important things when the government was hiring, promoting, or awarding taxpayer-funded contracts.”
…
“And yet, what Trump has done over these first two months seems to be a long, long way from restoring meritocracy to the federal government or society at large—often in ways that matter much more than a silly patronage job handed out to Tucker Carlson’s kid.
Start with some of the personnel decisions the administration has made. Reducing the size of the federal workforce is a laudable goal, but the mass firings carried out by Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) seem to have targeted probationary employees (those on the job less than a year, generally) first and foremost—despite DOGE’s public claims to the contrary. That’s an arbitrary approach that says absolutely nothing about merit and protects more senior employees simply because they’ve been around longer. Rather than promoting meritocracy, it is the sort of “last in, first out” thinking you’d expect from a teachers’ union.
That approach sits awkwardly alongside this week’s big news story: that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth disclosed sensitive operational details about a military operation in a group chat that included The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg. Goldberg was reportedly invited to the chat by Michael Waltz, Trump’s national security adviser, who has now also been put in charge of the investigation into how all of that happened. (Cue the meme!)
The implications have not gone unnoticed. If no one is fired over the group chat snafu, writes journalist Zaid Jilani, then “the message is that accountability is only for people at the bottom. People at the top can get away with anything.”
“There is no administration in the world—beyond this one—where a blunder of these proportions happens and nobody gets fired or resigns. Not in London. Not in Moscow. Not in Tokyo. Not in Pyongyang. Nowhere,” is how Politico summed it up on Thursday.
Without accountability, all that talk about meritocracy is pretty meaningless.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/28/the-meritocracy-lie/
“If the Trump administration merely ended all formal DEI training and initiatives, I wouldn’t be too concerned. They were, after all, never a significant part of what we did. What troubles me most is the attempt to stop all conversations about race and gender. Personal relationships and teams are strengthened by having difficult conversations, conversations that can sometimes make people uncomfortable. Avoiding, or worse banning, those conversations weakens both relationships and teams. Trust, mutual respect and shared values and goals are the foundations of strong teams. All are enhanced by open and candid conversations.
Eliminating any discussion of race or gender will have three negative consequences. The Trump administration and Secretary Hegseth are sending a strong message that white males are in charge again and they don’t want to hear anything about gender or racial inequities. Intended or not, that is what is being heard. Conversations I have had with leaders at all levels of the military indicate this is already having a significant impact on the morale and well-being of a large fraction of the force. Second, this is going to have a very negative effect on recruiting and retention that will deny our military the benefit of some of the most capable people in the nation. By the end of the Biden administration, we had met or exceeded all of the Department of the Air Force’s recruiting goals; I would hate to see that trend reversed. People already serving will choose to leave, and those considering service in the military will find other career options. Finally, the changes being implemented will empower the small minority of people who do have conscious gender or racial bias to act on those views. There aren’t many of these people in our military, but I can say from personal experience that they do exist.
If the Department of Defense and the nation are to move forward on gender and racial issues, we have to do it together. This means that white males like myself must join conversations that we may find uncomfortable and we must develop and display empathy for people unlike ourselves. That is called leadership. Conversations about race and gender are still going to happen no matter what policies are put in place to outlaw DEI training, ban certain words or eliminate affinity groups. Because of what the Trump administration and Secretary Hegseth are doing those conversations just won’t include white males. That is not going to make our military more united or stronger. It is going to make us weaker.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/19/dei-pentagon-hegseth-trump-00236799
“Trump’s anti-DEI orders have—mostly—stuck to signaling that the Education Department would enforce existing civil rights laws and Supreme Court precedents banning racial discrimination. But Martin’s attempt to go after a private religious institution on such vague grounds indicates the Trump administration will attempt to censor speech they perceive as left-wing or “woke,” rather than simply attacking illegal discrimination.”
https://reason.com/2025/03/07/u-s-attorney-threatens-georgetown-law-for-teaching-dei/
“Building lethality in the military may be the buzzword for the new Trump administration, but busywork and paperwork have become the reality at the Pentagon, as service members and civilian workers are facing a broad mandate to purge all of the department’s social media sites and untangle confusing personnel reduction moves.
On Wednesday, the department’s top public affairs official signed and sent out a new memo requiring all the military services to spend countless hours poring over years of website postings, photos, news articles and videos to remove any mentions that “promote diversity, equity and inclusion.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/27/pentagon-social-media-dei-00206453
The Trump-Musk attack on Academia and DEI is doing more harm than good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXx5Ziwh6is
The Biden administration made great strides in the diversity of their administration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1IQtJ1adzU
“The new orders prevent transgender people from openly serving in the military, greenlight the process of developing a missile defense shield to protect the U.S., and reinstate service members that voluntarily left or were forced out of the military over COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Trump also penned an expected executive order that would “abolish” every diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) office within the DOD and Department of Homeland Security, the latter of which houses the U.S. Coast Guard.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-signs-4-executive-orders-125635519.html
Trump is ending federal DEI to focus on hiring and promoting based on merit. But, is also requiring strict loyalty tests that include asking questions like who won particular elections and searching for negative comments someone may have made about Trump at some point.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzm3qoJ1i90